“Palast is exactly what a journalist is supposed to be-a truth hound,
doggedly independent, undaunted by power. His stories bite.
They’re so relevant they threaten to alter history.”
-CHICAGO TRIBUNE
HOW
TRUMP
PALAST
AUTHOR OF NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERS
THE BEST DEMOCRACY MONEY CAN BUY & ARMED MADHOUSE
How TVump Stole 2020
The Hunt for America’s Vanished Voters
GREG PALAST
INCLUDING A FORTY-EIGHT-PAGE COMIC BOOK BY
GREG PALAST AND TED RALL
Has Trump already stolen the 2020 election? Vote theft was
once considered to be a marginal issue that no one wanted
to talk about, but as the stakes have risen and the facts have
become known—in large part thanks to this author—it is now
recognized as one of the central issues deciding our presidential
elections.
The scheme’s scope is staggering. In the Georgia 2018 mid¬
term election alone—the testing ground—Republican voting
officials quietly removed half a million voters from the voter
rolls—including Martin Luther King’s ninety-two-year-old cous¬
in Christine Jordan.
How Trump Stole 2020 is the story of the racially poison¬
ous schemes to steal the 2020 election, the political operatives
behind the trickery—and the hard right billionaires funding it
all, written by the investigative reporter who has been covering
this story from the outset.
All three of GREG PALAST’s books on elections have been New
York Times bestsellers. In 2000, Palast’s investigation for the
BBC and the Guardian uncovered how the Bush family purged
thousands of Black men from Florida voter rolls, falsely labeling
them felons, the scheme that won Bush the White House.
In 2016, Palast predicted Trump’s “surprise” election months
earlier in a Rolling Stone expose detailing exactly how Trump’s
operatives, in control of voting offices in key states, would bend
the election results.
Palast’s two-decade hunt of elections chicanery are detailed
in his three bestselling books. The Best Democracy Money Can
Buy, Armed Madhouse, and Billionaires & Ballot Bandits.
One of America’s most informed political commentators, and
perhaps the only one who is also a top illustrator, Pulitzer Prize-
nominated TED RALL is the author of Snowden and Bernie,
among other books.
“Great fun. Palast, detective style, provides pieces of
the secret puzzle.” -The New Yorker
“Palast is exactly what a journalist is supposed to
be—a truth-hound, undaunted by power. ”
— The Chicago Tribune
“No one has told our story of our missing votes like
Greg Palast has.” —Rev. Jesse Jackson
Publication: July 14,2020
Trade Paperback
$16.95 US / $22.95 CAN
5” X 7” • 352 pages
ISBN: 978-1-64421-056-7
elSBN: 978-1-64421-057-4
Praise for Greg Palast
and How Trump Stole 2020
“Greg Palast is my hero. One of the most thorough and incisive
journalists on the matter of elections—and he’s f!@#$ing
hilarious! Read his work, it might just save us.”
—JOSH FOX, Gasland, Our Revolution
“Greg Palast is not only one of our nation’s finest investigative
reporters and in How Trump Stole 2020, proves a master
storyteller.”
—THOM HARTMANN
“Palast is one our great investigative reporters, if you are not
outraged by what Palast has uncovered, you have no heart. A
searing indictment of a rigged electoral system.”
—CHRIS HEDGES
“America’s wittiest muckracker.”
—Pacifica News
“A wild and woolly ride, peppered with moments of wry sardonic
humor that would make Dashiell Hammett smile. There’s so
much more I’d love to tell you about what Palast dug up. But then
I’d have to kill you.”
—Salon.com
“Palast’s work is invaluable for our community.”
—LATOSHA BROWN, Black Votes Matter
“Greg Palast is one of those inconveniently stubborn journalists
who gets his teeth into a story and shakes it bloody right there
in the middle of the parlor, dreadfully inconveniencing the
pampered swells of the elite political press. Palast has been on
the voter-caging story ever since people like Pastor Whiting
got screwed i8 years ago. Palast [has] dropped a bomb into the
elections that has left credibility shrapnel all over the democratic
process, if anyone cares to look for it.”
—CHARLES PIERCE, Esquire
“The information is a hand grenade.”
—JOHN PILGER
“An impressive amount of old-fashioned gumshoe data-sifting,
document-collecting, and gotcha source-baiting in pursuit of the
truth about voter fraud. Palast slices through all the B.S_Keep in
mind, he’s got just the facts, ma’am.”
—Village Voice
“Palast, with equal parts humor and indignation, cleverly shows
the pattern that has dominated American presidential elections
since 2000. He connects dots to explain why this is happening,
who is benefiting, how the dirty business is done.”
—Alternet
“The planet’s most tenacious investigative reporter.”
—JOHN NICHOLS, The Nation
“Greg Palast is my favorite investigative journalist with a hat on!
Of course, he’s also my favorite investigative journalist period.
Spewing truths that make the ruling elite cry.”
—LEE CAMP
No one has told our story as Greg Palast has.
—REV. JESSE JACKSON
“Funnier and better writing than Moore, more accessible than
Chomsky, Palast has made a fine contribution to the honourable
tradition of leftistbelly-aching. And 1 mean that as a compliment.”
—Sunday Business Post, Dublin
Praise for Ted Rail
“if Doonesbury and Michael Moore are the cutting edge of
American political comedy. Rail is its bludgeon. Humour is his
offensive weapon.”
—The Guardian
“Rail channeled his bitterness to become one of the best political
cartoonists in America.”
—Salon
HOW TRUMP
STOLE 2020
Also by Greg Palast
The Best Democracy Money Can Buy
Billionaires & Ballot Bandits
Vultures’Picnic
Armed Madhouse
Steal Back Your Vote (comic book)
Regulation and Democracy
Also by Ted Rail
Political Suicide: The Fight for the Soul
of the Democratic Party
Bernie
Francis: The People’s Pope
Trump
Snowden
The Book of Obama
The Anti-American Manifesto
Silk Road to Ruin
HOW TRUMP
STOLE 2020
The Hunt for America’s
Vanished Voters
GREG PALAST
Includes a 48-page
comic book by
TED RALL
Seven Stories Press
New York • Oakland • Liverpool
Copyright © 2020 by the Palast Investigative Fund.
Ail rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including me¬
chanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior
written permission of the publisher.
SEVEN STORIES PRESS
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New York, NY 10013
www.sevenstories.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Palast, Greg, author. | Rail, Ted, illustrator.
Title: How Trump stole 2020 / Greg Palast; with comics by Ted Rail.
Description: New York, NY: Seven Stories Press, [2020]
Identifiers: LCCN 2020017384 (print) | LCCN 2020017385 (ebook) | ISBN
9781644210567 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9781644210574 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Trump, Donald, 1946 -1 Presidents—United
States—Eiection—2020. | Presidents—United States—Eiection—2016. |
Presidents—United States—Election—Forecasting.
Classification: LCC JK526 2016 .P35 2020 (print) | LCC JK526 2016 (ebook)
I DDC 324.973/o933-dc23
LC record availabie at https://Iccn.loc.gov/2020017384
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020017385
College professors and high school and middle school teachers may order
free examination copies of Seven Stories Press tides. To order, visit
www.sevenstories.com or send a fax on schooi ietterhead to 212-226-1411.
Printed in the USA.
987654321
Portions of this book appeared in The Guardian, Rolling Stone, Salon, Vice,
and on A 1 Jazeera, Democracy Now!, and BBC Teievision Newsnight.
Palast co-hosts The Election Crimes Bulletin with Dennis Bernstein on Pacifica
Radio Network’s Flashpoints.
For Leni Badpenny,
investigatrix extraordinaire
Take it to The Bridge!
—James Brown
Contents
1 The End.i
2 You Are Not Guilty.3
3 The Purge’n General.9
4 340,134 Lynched by Laptop.15
5 The Unseen Tsunami.23
EMERGENCY ALERT!
Virus Votes for Trump
Coronavirus Causes Outbreak
of Mail-in Madness.26
6 Stacey Abrams Digs In.35
7 Poisoned Postcards.39
8 Trump Re-elected by Five Votes.49
9 Schindler’s Black List.59
10 Stealing Wisconsin 2020 . 63
11 ERIC Crow, Jim Crow’s Liberal Twin. 69
12 Aliens Invade Kansas.77
13 Von Spakovsky’s Icicle. 85
14 James Brown Voted 568 Times .93
15 Voting Gangnam Style—The Rise of
Kim Crow. 113
16 Michigan Michigass. 117
ENTR’ACTE
Stacey Abrams and Brian Kemp;
Tl/2 Interviews.125
17 Wisconsin Eats Its Young. 147
18 Turdblossom Freaks Out.157
19 The Red Shift Is Coming. 167
20 The Amnesia Machine.173
21 The Uncounted 7 , 854,928 .177
22 Russian to Judgment. 185
HOW TO STEAL AN ELECTION
Vote Thieves—The Art of the Steal
Comics by Ted Rail.I87
23 California Reamin’. 235
24 How to Steal Your Own Vote. 247
25 “Second, as Farce”.251
26 Follow the Chainsaw.259
27 “Then he goes and buys all the politicians”... 265
28 Silence of the Democratic Lambs. 273
29 Democracy con Salsa.281
30 Jim Crow International.285
31 No-BS Ways to Stop the Steal.295
32 Deport My Wife, Please!.305
33 An Almost-Happy Ending.309
Conclusion: Shine.313
Protect Your Vote! Greg & Ted’s New, Improved
Ballot Condom.319
321
Appendix: Cohere One Findings
Acknowledgments.
About the Author.
Index.
CHAPTER 1
The End
Donald Trump was re-elected President on November
7 , 2018 .
Two years before a single ballot was cast.
1
CHAPTER 2
You Are Not Guilty
America, let’s talk.
I get it: You’re stunned you elected an orange-
stained, gelatinous bag of malicious mendacity, a
snorting porcine pustule of bloviating bigot hinged to
grasping little griplets, a bloated ball of gracelessness
and cry-baby petulance as President of the United
States.
America, you can stop hiding your face in shame:
you are not guilty.
Trump didn’t win in 2016. And I’m not talking about
Trump losing the popular vote. Trump lost the Elec¬
toral College. That is, he lost if you count all the votes
burgled, jacked, swiped, shoplifted, purloined, filched,
fiddled and snatched from citizens not of a whitish
orange hue.
And unless we wise up, 2020 will be deja vu all over
again.
3
4 How Trump Stole 2020
□ □ □
Let’s get this clear from jump: Trump didn’t master¬
mind the steal of the vote. He doesn’t have the native
smarts to pull off the caper. For that, he has his stable
of Rhodes Scholars, database gurus and lethal legal
weenies. I’ll give you their names later, those who did
the dirty.
If you’re reading this during Trump’s second term
in 2021 or third term in 2025, keep reading, because
there’s nothing new under the sun. This is a con that’s
as old as Jim Crow and older, back to the time when
George Washington fought to give Jews and Catholics
the right to vote.
I’ve spent 20 years cracking the code on ballot bur¬
glary. Schemes with names like “Crosscheck” and
“Caging” and “Spoiling." Expose one, another pops up
like electoral Whack-a-Mole.
Eyeif four years, some new cheat. I Just couldn’t:
figure this one out —how are they going to take 2020 ?—
until I started tracking a character with a shotgun, a
chainsaw, a pick-up truck, a dynamite detonator and a
lot of love from Koch Industries.
On November 7,2018, it all snapped into place when
Chainsaw was elected the 83rd white Governor of
Georgia.
How Trump Stole 2020 5
"'And it's horrible....Tocome
out and not be able to vote and no
one can give you an explanation...’
\
HORRIBLE
It was raining that day in Atlanta. But I could see the
large tears tracking down the face of Christine Jordan’s
niece.
“It’s horrible,” she said.
Ms. Jordan, 92 years old, had dressed elegantly for
6 How Trump Stole 2020
the occasion, her 50th year at the same polling station,
"voting right here since 1968,” Ms. Jordan said, the year
her cousin Martin Luther King Jr. was gunned down.
But she would not vote this time. They threw her
out of the polling station.
“It’s horrible,” repeated her niece, Jennifer. “It’s hor¬
rible to come out and not be able to vote and no one
can give you an explanation. She held civil rights meet¬
ings in her home and they had no record of her. She was
here in the West End community when we couldn’t...
.” She choked on the word “vote.”
“It’s extremely emotional. And it bothers me.
Bothers me to my core.”
“I’m sorry.” She apologized for crying. “I’m sorry.”
□ □ □
I’m an investigative reporter. I don’t cry. But it bothered
me, too. Because % tnew 1 was witnessing more than]
the ugly Jim Crow blockade of an elderly Black woman
from the ballot box. I knew I was witnessing the suc¬
cessful test run in Georgia of a new vote-snatching
game that would re-elect Donald Trump no matter the
will of America’s voters.
I’ve seen this movie before. In ®ovemJ|er; 2000,
when I got my hands on two computer discs from
inside the offices of Katherine Harris, chair of the Bush
How Trump Stole 2020 7
for President campaign, and crucially, the Secretary
of State of Florida, the person in charge of the voting.
I cracked the codSs, and discovered that Harris had
flushed 97,000 voters torn registration rolls —most)
of them Black—tagging them as felons, ex-cons, who
can’t vote.
In fact, the number of illegal ex-con voters? Zero.
Their only crime was VWB, Voting While Black.
Harris announced George W. Bush had won Florida,
and therefore the Presidency of the United States, by
just 537 votes. That is, “won” by excluding the tens of
thousands of African-Americans she’d secretly-ille¬
gally-barred from voting.
And here I was in Georgia, i 8 years later, and it’s deja
vu all over again. Again.
Raheim Shabazz was at the same polling station as
Ms. Jordan. He’d also been given the heave-ho. He got
no ballot, but they did give him a lapel sticker that said,
“I’m a Georgia voter!” printed on a peach, the state
fruit.
At the next polling station, Ashlee Jones, a Latina,
brought her three cute daughters to watch her get
bounced from the poll as well. Bounced along with
Yasmine Bakhtiari, daughter of Iranian immigrants,
whose name had also vanished from voter rolls.
Dark-hued voters, by the tens of thousands, flushed
from voter registries. The Purged.
8 How Trump Stole 2020
They didn’t accuse Miss Jordan of being a felon,
ex-con. So what was this new game?
Geor^^
CHAPTER 3
The Purge’n General
Brian Kemp stood next to his pick-up truck. “Ah like to
blow up ..Ka-blamm! A dynamite cap spews a part
of his lawn into his hedges. “... government spending!”
Next we see Kemp with a shotgun pointed at a ner¬
vous young man to ensure the kid has “a healthy
respect for the Second Amendment.”
10 How Trump Stole 2020
And, he adds in his brand-new Dawg Patch accent,
“I got a Big Truck just in case I have to round up some
criminal illegals and take’m in myself! I just said that!”
Brian Kemp isn’t some redneck goober. He just plays
one on TV. Until recently, he dressed as what he is,
landed gentry, with that soft Jimmy Carter New South
accent. Brooks Brothers blue suit and tie. But, running
for Governor of the Peach State, he went full hayseed:
old jeans, plaid shirts, pick-up truck and shotgun—
and the yokels ate it up.
But Kemp had a problem: Stacey Abrams, his oppo¬
nent, a super-popular legislator. Harvard Law grad,
both parents Baptist ministers, the daughter every
parent dreams of, the nice lady next door, the kind
that will help your kid with their homework. No visible
shotgun, no chainsaw, just a plan for expanding health
care. In the polls, Abrams was passing Kemp’s alien¬
laden pick-up truck.
And Kemp had another problem: demographics.
A lack of Good 01’ Boys. The Gensus is about to list
Georgia as the first “minority majority” state in the
Deep South, whites outnumbered by non-whites.
And as the first African-American woman in history
to run for Governor of any state in the USA, the Black
turn-out would be crushing and decisive.
Bluntly, there simply weren’t enough white people
to make Kemp governor.
How Trump Stole 2020 11
□ □ □
But Kemp wielded a dark weapon more powerful than
mere voters. As Secretary of State, Kemp had complete
(auffiioritf over*^ffie“electionj Kemp could say where
people vote, how they vote and, most importantly, who
gets to vote.
There’s a cable TV show. The Purge, in which Ameri¬
cans in the future get one day a year when they can kill
anyone they want to kill.
It’s based on a true story.
Once a year, since the beginning of this century, a
group of political hitmen, “Secretaries of State,” are
allowed to wipe out the voting rights of Americans by
“purging” them from the voter rolls.
As the Purge’n General of Georgia, Kemp used his
power like a chainsaw. In the lead-up to his run for
Governor, Kemp purged 665,677, two-thirds of a mil-
Jton r e Mstrations.) The Purge erased the voting rights
of one in eight Georgians. Including Ms. Jordan, Mr.
Shabazz, Ms. Jones and Ms. Bakhtiari.
(If you’re thinking, “How can this guy run for Gov¬
ernor and be in charge of his own election?,” you’ve
never been to Georgia.)
I admit. I’m a suspicious man. I’d been trailing
Kemp, for A 1 Jazeera and Rolling Stone, for six years.
His trick-bag of vote suppression tools, including prior
12 How Trump Stole 2020
purges that smelled of Jim Crow, kept drawing me back
to Georgia.
But this Purge was breathtaking, something new.
Surely, there must be a law to prevent someone like
Kemp from just taking away your registration?
Yes: the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. Known
as the Motor Voter law because it requires states to give
out registration forms with your driver’s license appli¬
cations. Every DMV becomes a safe voter registration
center. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 won African-Amer¬
icans the right to vote in the South. But you can’t vote if
you aren’t registered, so the NVRA jammed registration
right down the throats of states that still made voting for
Black people a cruel obstacle course.
Not that the Good 01 ’ Boys hadn’t come up with a
way around the Motor Voter law. I’d just returned from
a visit to the DMV in Lowndes Gounty, Alabama. The
door was locked, midday. The DMV had been closed
by order of the state, as was virtually every single
DMV in the “Black Belt” counties of Alabama, the Afri¬
can-American counties.
Kemp himself was even less subtle.
When a registration drive sent Georgia officials
86,419 forms of new voters, mostly young students of
color, Kemp simply did not add 40,000 of them to the
voter rolls. In 2016 ,1 flew to Atlanta to find out what
the hell was going on. I met attorney Nse Ufot:
How Trump Stole 2020 13
You know what [Kemp’s office] told us? “We
don’t know what you’re talking about. What
forms?" They did not disappear. We intentionally
registered voters on paper forms so that we could
make copies. We knew who they were. They were
not on the voter rolls.
Kemp responded by threatening to arrest the voter
registration leaders—including the founder, Stacey
Abrams—for alleged criminal tampering of voter reg¬
istration forms. That is, they copied the forms so Kemp
couldn’t disappear them.
Ufot saw the registrations sitting in government
offices, piled high and dusty, “with my own four eyes”
(she wears glasses). Once the forms were “discovered,”
Kemp’s office then claimed the government simply had
no time to review the voter applications. That was 2014 -
In 2018, four years later, and running against Abrams,
Kemp still had not found time to add her voters.
CHAPTER 4
340,134, Lynched by Laptop
Mow’d he get away with it? Pull off the caper?
How did Mr. “I-got-a-big-truck” remove way over
half a million voters, a nuclear hit on the registration
rolls that somehow targeted Black, Hispanic and young
voters with a laser-like precision? And how did he do it
and stay on this side of prison bars?
And how, with this giant voter eraser, did Kemp
snatch the Governorship of Georgia —and re-elect
Donald Trump?
His excuse was so benign, so innocent, so simple.
The excuse the Purge’n General used to eliminate
the registrations? Kemp kept the info locked up—but
a federal judge unlocked them for me. Some Georgia
voters had died (64,446 of them), some were impris¬
oned for felonies (14,021) and there were a few other
smatterings of legit removals.
But that left 534,510—over half a million purged—
15
16 How Trump Stole 2020
for a reason identified only as “System Cancels.” They
were cancelled by the system because they had failed
(to vote in two elections and hadtft returned a post-)
(cari rnailed to d^eir re^stration a^lress.;On the basis
of the missed elections and a missed postcard, Kemp
concluded that every one of these half million voters
had moved away: they had moved out of their county,
or out of state or out of the country.
Who can argue with that? Only a fool would say that
someone who’s left Georgia for Ohio should stay on
Georgia’s voter rolls.
But something was missing.
U-Haul trucks.
I’d traveled to Georgia a number of times during
The Big Purge. With half a million voters leaving—and
that means hundreds of thousands of families moving
in two years—Interstate Highway 85 out of Atlanta
should have been filled with U-Haul trucks, mini-vans,
rickshaws, anything that could carry the households
of this mass exodus.
The press wrung their hands over this terrible mass
purge but wrote it was legit.
But no one asked, “Where are the U-Hauls?”
Riddle me this:
The US Gensus says less than 2.5% of Southerners
move out of their county in any year, or 274,273 of
Georgia’s 6.8 million voters.
How Trump Stole 2020 17
You don’t have to be a math whiz to see the numbers
don’t add up.
I’m not Sherlock Holmes. I didn’t figure out the con
in a fiash of inductive reasoning after injecting a 7%
solution of cocaine. I started with Kemp’s office, with
a formal Freedom of Information request. However, in
Georgia, information has not yet been emancipated.
“Please, sir, could you give me the names of the voters
you purged and their former addresses?’’ just didn’t cut
it. Kemp’s office told me to fly.
Now, as an investigative reporter, I have a few (legal)
tricks and a team of experienced tricksters. The best,
Zach D. Roberts, who, conveniently, has other legal
names, had gotten a purge list from Kemp four years ear¬
lier. ZD told one of Kemp’s flunkies, a leader of the Young
Republicans, that he was gathering info for a Fox radio
show to run a glowing story about Kemp’s worthy purge
operation. ZD did in fact do some work for Fox, but the
lists would go first to a Rolling Stone reporter: me.
You can’t pull that off twice. So, I wheeled out big
guns: the New York law firm of Mirer, Mazzocchi and
Julien. They filed an unprecedented lawsuit in federal
court based on rarely used powers in the National
Voter Registration Act.
Kemp’s crew came out with their hands up and files
open: turning over the names and addresses of half a mil¬
lion Georgians who had supposedly moved. The Purged.
18 How Trump Stole 2020
What could we do with half a million names? Start
calling. We wanted to know, had they really left the
state? There was Gladys Bonner, in an assisted living
home, who had indeed moved—but from one room
in her building to another. Under the law, she should
never have lost her vote. And there were a whole lot
of people like ML King’s cousin. Miss Jordan, who had
hadn’t moved at all.
And almost every one we reached was ... well, not
white. Hmmm.
But this was anecdotal—a sample. I didn’t like the
smell of Kemp’s purge, but a few cases do not an indict¬
ment make.
So my investigations team created a computer pro¬
gram at GregPalast.com which allowed Georgians to
see whether they were on Kemp’s purge list. We added
a request at the site: contact us. Within days 1,900 did,
angry, upset that they lost their right to vote without
so much as a posting on their Facebook page. Dawan
Mitchell, returned from a tour of duty in Iraq, wrote us,
telling us he did move... but into the state.
The smell of mendacity rose, but this still was not
the scientific gotcha evidence I needed.
How could I find out exactly how many on the list
had actually moved —versus how many were simply
re-moved by Kemp?
How Trump Stole 2020 19
□ □ □
Ask yourself, “Who knows exactly where every American
lives, with 100% accuracy?” And you know the answer:
Amazon. eBay. Amazon never sends John Jackson
another John Jackson’s pimple remover. Who else knows
where you live, with certainty? American Express. Your
friendly credit card company will find you in the far cor¬
ners of North Korea if you try to skip out on your bill.
So I turned to Mark Swedlund, a legend in the
“direct marketing” business—do not call it “junk mail.”
Swedlund had helped me out over the years, including
setting up an elaborate false front for The Guardian.
(We pretended to be fixers for a company called Enron
and set out to buy the British government. It was sur¬
prisingly cheap. We were invited into Prime Minister
Tony Blair’s residence at 10 Downing Street before we
splashed the headline in The Guardian about the gov¬
ernment’s flea market for favors.)
Swedlund’s clients included Amazon, eBay and
American Express and he confirmed that “they know
exactly where you were last Thursday, and if you
ordered Chinese food and then downloaded a Kevin
Costner movie.”
He added, “I think that’s creepy”—but suggested we
could use their tracking systems to go through Kemp’s
purge list.
20 How Trump Stole 2020
For that, he said, you need to retain the services
of someone called an “advanced address list hygiene
expert.” I’d never heard of “advanced address list
hygiene.” But Swedlund hooked me up with the best in
the field, John Lenser, the CEO of the advanced address
list hygiene company CohereOne, used by the industry
big boys.
Lenser and Swedlund put together a hell of a team,
including a “de-concatenation” specialist who picked
apart the pile of computer mush Kemp’s flunkies had
given us.
What^flhe Lenser/Swedlund team ^found. was
eye-popping. They went through Kemp’s purge list of
half a million voters name by name, and the registra¬
tion addresses of every person Kemp said had moved
their residence. Lenser looked at tax biUs, where
someone last had pizza delivered, phone bills, your
alimony checks . . . accessing two hundred and forty
databases that can confirm where you reside with
stone-cold accuracy.
Notably, Mr. Kemp didn’t bother to ask why thou¬
sands of people had supposedly moved out of Georgia
but were still paying Georgia income taxes.
I lost the office pool. I expected about 15% inaccu¬
racy in Kemp’s purge. I was wrong, big wrong.
□ □ □
How Trump Stole 2020 21
Leaser’s first report blew me away: 340,134 Georgians
that had been purged for moving were, in fact, still
living in the home in which they’d registered.
Leaser told me,
[340,000 of feose voters remained at their ofgQ
inal address, they shouHTiave never been
(removeAteom Ette voter registration rolls. ;
More than a third of a million wrongly purged—in
this one state. The list was more than 74% wrong. Three
out of four. (The report is so astonishing. I’ve included
Leaser’s three-page summary in the Appendix.)
This was not a statistical sample, not an algorithm
nor estimate. This was a name-by-name investigation
of those disappeared in plain sight. We were using
Amazon’s method and Amazon, unlike the Pope, is
infallible. (Actually, 96% accurate, according to Leaser.
He told me his figures had a 4% error rate because,
between gathering data and reporting it, people do
pass on to another county or further: the Leaser team
found that the state purged 19,118 folks who “moved,”
but had, in fact, died.)
After two decades on this beat, I knew what would
come next. The Georgia vote purge game, spread to
a dozen key states, would stealthily bleach the voter
roils whiter than white.
22 How Trump Stole 2020
The Purge, not the voters, would re-elect Donald
Trump.
CHAPTER 5
The Unseen Tsunami
And spread it did. Swing states that would decide the
2020 election—Ohio, North Carolina, Wisconsin—
had done a “Kemp job” on their voter rolls.
Purge-mania was moving through GOP states like
poop through a goose. By mid-2020, leading into the
Presidential race, the urge to purge took over:
Ohio—432,000
North Carolina— 576,534
Arizona—258,000
Wisconsin—99,000 (+232,000 listed for purge)
... and so on.
23
24 How Trump Stole 2020
As the methods in these states were just variants on
the Georgia system, I can tell you, as a former professor
(^statMIc^ the 70%+bogus factor would be the same.
And, with at least two dozen other states rushing
to “Georgia-fy” their lists, the total of voters wrongly
removed would hit many millions by November 2020.
How many? I dove into the deeper files of the fed¬
eral Elections Assistance Gommission, the EAG. An
odd number jumped out: between 2014 and 2016, the
number of voters purged for moving their residence
had soared to 16,696,470—one in 12 registered Aaieri-
(cans. Wow, we are a restless bunch.)
But not according to the Census. The number of
purged voters was nearly double the number of voters
the Gensus counted as having moved out of their
county or state.
And the statistics got curiouser and curiouser. The
purged-for-moving number had gone up by 1.9 mil¬
lion in the two years leading up to the 2016 election.
How strange. The Gensus reported that the number
of Americans on the move in those two years had
declined.
Worse, the EAG purge numbers were seriously
undercounted. The EAG footnotes (I always read the
footnotes) state that several states and counties don’t
report their purge operations. While Kemp had con¬
ducted his Big Purge with a lot of fanfare, other states
How Trump Stole 2020 25
quietly removed voters using Kemp’s dead-wrong
methods before the 2016 race.
And who was removing voters? The Democrat-con¬
trolled state of New Mexico purged only two out of
every thousand voters, or 0.2%. But then there was
Indiana. Barack Obami won the state in 2008. How¬
ever, by 2016, the Hoosier state wrenched violently
into the Republican Red Zone. Where had the Obama
voters gone? According to Indiana’s report to the EAC,
they moved out. In the two years leading into the 2016
race, under Governor Mike Pence, Indiana purged
!a~ lfeatft M Kni 2 2.4% of i ts reM strants—one in live )
voters.
□ □ □
The number of voters wrongly purged— 340,134 and
more in Georgia alone—is so huge, so staggering, so
jaw-droppingly large, I was, at first, afraid to report it.
With trepidation, I filed the expose of the Big Purge
in Georgia with Salon. And warned of millions at risk
in two dozen other states for 2020. But who would
believe me?
Among officialdom, just one: the Hon. Stacey
Abrams.
Emergency Alert!
Coronavirus Leads to Outbreak of Mail-in Madness
I’m writing this from quarantine. So I get it: We all must
vote by mail—or we die. There may be no choice.
But here’s what the “Go Postal” crowd doesn’t tell
you: in 2016, 512,696 mail-in baiiots —:over hpf a:
( miMon —^were s!mi^ refectefl, not counted. IHhafsl
official, from the EAC.
But that’s just the tip of the ballot-berg of uncounted
mail-in votes. The MIT study Losing Votes by Mail puts
the total loss of mail-in votes at a breathtaking 22%.
Move to 80% mail-in voting and 25 million will lose
their vote.
And not just anyone’s mail-in ballots are dumped in
the electoral trashcan. Overwhelmingly, those junked
are ballots mailed by poorer, younger, and un-white
Americans.
Barbara Arnwine is worried. Mail-in balloting
is “really, really dangerous to the Black vote.” Prof.
Arnwine of Columbia University Law School, acknowl¬
edged as the nation’s top voting rights attorney, told me
that millions of minorities who rarely vote absentee
will now have to fill out multi-step forms for the first
time, which “will lead to disaster.”
The Professor’s not guessing. When Colorado moved
26
to all mail-in voting, the Black turnout fell over a cliff,
to less than half of white turnout.
Because voting by mail is not as simple as “pick
and lick”—choosing a candidate and sticking a ballot
in an envelope. Eight states, including the swing
states of Wisconsin, Minnesota and North Carolina,
require mail-in voters to have the ballot witnessed by
a registered voter. The required double-verification is a
nightmare and invitation to challenges.
Three states, including swing state Missouri, require
the ballot to be notarized. (Alabama requires a notary
or two witnesses.)
All but six states “verify” your ballot signature against
your registration signature. Partisan officials decide if
there is a “match.” No less than 141,000 ballots were
rejected for “unmatched” signatures in 2016. Why? To
prevent vote fraud, someone stealing your ballot and
voting in your name. As our President warned us:
Mail ballots are very dangerous for this country
because of cheaters. They are fraudulent.
Sometimes a psychopathic narcissist* can be right.
But not this time.
* “Psychopathic narcissism” is the diagnosis of Rev. Dr. Thayer A. Greene, Jung
Association of Western Massachusetts.
27
Rutgers Professor Lorraine Minnite, the nation’s top
vote fraud expert, found just six verified cases of voter
impersonation over 12 years of our nation’s elections.
The Election Law Journal reported that “the propor¬
tion of the population reporting voter impersonation
is indistinguishable from that reporting abduction by
extraterrestrials.”
A Caltech/MIT study, Whose Absentee Votes Are
Counted?, shows rejection rates higher for Demo¬
crats than Republicans, higher for younger than older
voters, and higher for non-English ballots. Surprised?
In California, thousands of Korean-Americans, per
their rights under federal law, filled in Korean-language
ballots which ask, in Korean, for the voter’s signature.
Not surprisingly, the voters signed in Korean. All these
ballots went straight into the garbage.
Worse, some states require all or first-time voters to
mail in a copy of their ID, another hurdle for the poor,
those without drivers licenses and those who may
have the wrong ID and not know it. Swing states Ari¬
zona, Iowa, Texas and Wisconsin reject most photo IDs
issued by their own state universities.
Nationally, over 100,000 absentee ballots were deep-
sixed because they were missing a signature—in many
cases, the second voter signature required in some states.
And another 100,000 ballots are lost because of
postage due.
28
VAPORIZED VOTES
It’s kinda hard to mail in your ballot if you don’t get
one in the first place.
Direct-mail expert Michael Wychocki of Chicago
tells me that 4% to 20% of any mailing goes astray,
leaving voting rights at risk for more than a million cit¬
izens simply from wrong and changed addresses.
And, crucially, there’s an enormous difference
between rich and poor. “The African-American Wil¬
liams family, renters, may move every year,” Wychocki
says, “but the Whitehall family in the million-dollar
home is barely likely to have moved.”
Under federal law, if you move within your county,
you don’t lose your registration; but hey, the Post
Office will inadvertently wipe away your right to vote
by returning your do-not-forward ballot.
And pols, especially of the Republican persuasion,
know it.
That’s why I’m not surprised that the first voting
official to call for a switch to all-postal balloting is
Ohio’s Republican voting chief, Frank LaRose. From
2012 to 2016, Ohio swung from Obama to Trump, and
LaRose would like to keep it that way.
One secret of the state’s flip to red is that LaRose’s
GOP predecessor, in the month before the 2016 pres¬
idential election, simply refused to send absentee
29
ballot application cards to 1,035,795 voters, those
on the absurdly inaccurate “inactive” or “mover” lists.
:¥oters Io_st tbiei r r ijjhts— w itifouf ho tic e 7 :)The Ohio you-
don’t-get-a-ballot lists are two-to-one Democratic.
With 17 million voters erased from the registration
rolls in the past two years, millions will say. Where the
hell is my ballot? Sorry: they’ll be S.O.L.
Ana Maria Rosato of the ACLU Georgia is having
a conniption over the Peach State’s decision that, for
2020, it won’t send out ballot requests to “inactive”
voters. At least Gov. Kemp gave out a warning. Other
Republican states will shaft the Democrat-heavy inac¬
tive lists without any announcement.
Prof. Robert Fitrakis of Golumbus State University
says that Ohio led the way in rejecting mail-in ballots
on a mass scale. “We have a history in Ohio of deliber¬
ately using the absentee ballot in a partisan and racist
wajH’
Fitrakis pointed out that George W. Bush’s re-elec¬
tion victory in 2004 hinged on Ohio GOP Secretary
of State Ken Blackwell disqualifying mountains of
mail-ins with such excuses as “Signature below line,”
i.e., part of the signature was not perfectly inside a box.
Some states have moved to Same Day Registration
(SDR), which allows a wrongly purged voter to register
on Election Day in the polling station. With mail-in
balloting, kiss that key protection goodbye.
30
Federal law requires states without SDR to provide
a “provisional” ballot to those who find themselves
missing from the rolls. While provisional ballots pro-
(vide dubious protection —over a miMon were rejected)
(in 2016— stifl. over a million were counted, iflnorl-)
ties, far more likely to have to vote provisionally than
whites, will lose this protection: there is no such thing
as a mail-in provisional ballot.
BUBBLE TROUBLE
The nasty secret of American elections is that we don’t
count all the ballots.
Even if your mail-in ballot arrives on time and is
accepted, your vote for President may still not count.
The US has a huge problem with “residual”
(uncounted) ballots: the voter’s choice is not read¬
able by optical scanners or other counting machines.
And once again, some voters are more “residual” than
others. The Brennan Center for Justice finds that in
some elections, African-Americans are five times as
likely to have their vote disqualified for “over-voting”
(making an extra mark on the ballot) than white voters,
an artifact of crappy machines in poor neighborhoods.
Happily, the residual number has declined because
of in-precinct scanners: the voter puts their ballot
through the scanner, which beeps or kicks the ballot
31
back if the scanner detects an under- or over-vote.
With mail-ins, there is no scanner to warn that the vote
won’t count. The non-count will soar because mail-in
voters make understandable errors such as marking an
“X” next to their choice instead of filling in the little
circle.
In Billionaires & Ballot Bandits I cited two voters
who failed to properly fill in their bubbles and lost
their absentee votes. They were two of 5,000 bub-
ble-less absentee votes disqualified in the mayoral race
in San Diego. The voided mail-in ballots allowed GOP
lawyers to successfully overturn the Democrats’ elec¬
tion victory.
Maybe you have no sympathy for these voters
because they were too dumb to figure out the mail-in
voting instructions. Hey, don’t talk that way about my
mom and sister!
□ □ □
We have no choice. We must vote by mail. Because,
despite all the mail-in maladies I’ve laid out in painful
(numbers. In-person votlna is dangerous to our]
health. This April (2020), the Republican-controlled
Wisconsin legislature turned down the Democratic
Governor’s request to delay the April 7 election, and
his proposal to mail ballots to every voter.
32
The pretense of an election rolled ahead in Wis¬
consin—and Trump tried to grimly reap his first virus
ballot bonus. Rural Wisconsin, that is, Trump Wis¬
consin, is sparse enough, with few infected, that white
voters could safely cast ballots, while Black voters in
Milwaukee waited hours, a dance of death resulting
from the reduction in the number of polling stations
from 180 to five because of the virus. Repeat: 180 sta¬
tions to five because poll workers were, intelligently,
unwilling to die.
The result was a shocker: the GOP-backed judge
lost! But still, Jim Growronavirus) won. Republicans
remain in control of the State Supreme Court, and that
means a likely Court order to purge 232,597 voters,
overwhelmingly Democrats. (Details in the chapter
“Stealing Wisconsin 2020.”)
That’s a giant thumb on the scale for Trump’s
re-election.
□ □ □
How to save the dying embers of democracy-by-mail?
Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota has proposed a law
that will help, though the legislation, like the Senator,
is woefully inadequate. The Klobuchar bill requires
states to provide postage-paid return envelopes for
mail-in ballots. Good.
33
That’s not enough. States, Senator, like your own
Minnesota, must be barred from requiring witness or
notary signatures.
Wisconsin and other states require that first-time
voters mail in a copy of their ID, another hurdle for the
poor, those without driver’s licenses or those who may
have the wrong ID and not know it. Not many voters
know that swing states Arizona, Wisconsin, Texas, and
Ohio do not accept most student IDs.
And we must outlaw challenges to signatures unless
there is a report filed that the ballot has been stolen.
“Inactive” voters should not be denied ballots—let
the voter choose to be active. And, as proposed by Wis¬
consin Governor Tony Evers, every voter in the USA
should be mailed a ballot without having to request
one.
And crucially, a mass voter education campaign
must show unfamiliar voters how to obtain a postal
ballot, how to fill out the ballot (no pencils, bubbles
not X’s), how to fill out the return envelope and how
many stamps are required. (Note for your safety: two
people should never lick the same stamp.)
34
CHAPTER 6
Stacey Abrams Digs In
After each ballot-box mugging, after every robbed-in-
broad-daylight election, Democrats consistently tend
to quietly lick their wounds—if not kiss the knives that
stabbed them.
While A 1 Gore and Hillary Clinton—and I can’t tell
you how many other politicians—talk about vote sup¬
pression during an election campaign, they always
see no evil in the final vote count. Not the Hon. Stacey
Abrams. She shouts it from the rooftops: They stole it.
“So let’s be clear—this is not a speech of concession,
because concession means to acknowledge an action
is right, true or proper_Under the watch of the now
former secretary of state, democracy failed Georgia.”
Again and again, she cited our team’s finding of
340,134 voters wrongly purged, six times Kemp’s
so-called “victory” margin. Abrams was outraged seeing
our film of Martin Luther King’s 92-year-old cousin.
35
36 How Trump Stole 2020
She talks the talk, and better, walks the walk. Within
days of the ballot burglary, Abrams founded a non-par¬
tisan organization to fight the purges, the lines, the
back-of-the-bus provisional ballots. In 2019, after
she was swindled out of the governorship, her new
non-partisan group Fair Fight hired my investigations
team experts, Lenser and crew, to dig even deeper, for
a federal suit she filed to end The Purge.
And dig they did. It turns out, wrongly purging
340,134 was not enough for Kemp. That was the number
of voters whom he booted off the rolls for having moved
their residence—though none had moved an inch.
What that number, huge though it is, missed were
voters like Raheim Shabazz, one of the nearly two thou¬
sand voters that contacted me when they read our report.
Shabazz had indeed moved ... just down the road,
in the same neighborhood. But federal law is explicit:
no one has to re-register, and certainly no one may lose
their vote if they move within the same county.
The state claims to notify every voter facing the
knife. Shabazz put the new address on his license, paid
Georgia taxes from the new address. He was hardly in
hiding: Shabazz has his own radio show. He was furious:
When they want me to pay a traffic ticket,
they find me. But when my right to vote is at
stake—I’m invisible.
How Trump Stole 2020 37
And the tens of thousands wrongly removed for
having moved within the same neighborhood, same
county? How brilliant of Kemp. Those living at or
below the poverty line—let’s just call them “Dem¬
ocrats”—are 440% more likely to move in any year
within their county than the average American.
When the Abrams/Palast Investigations experts
included voters that simply moved down the street—
or down the hall—and also found voters previously
untraced, the wrongful purge number jumped by tens
of thousands, atom 7 0% wronito 90% wr ongt
Let’s review the math. Of the half million voters
Kemp purged for supposedly moving their residence,
340,134 had never moved an inch. But now, the Lenser
team found, nearly 100,000 more who had moved
within their county—and therefore, they too should
never have been purged. The total of wrongfully
(scruMteA voters was now over 400.000.)
But Shotgun Kemp was unashamed. Donald Trump
had flown in to Georgia to campaign for Kemp, and
Kemp was going to return the favor. At the beginning
of 2020, Georgia purged another 120,000 voters who
allegedly moved.
Abrams’s group tried to stop this election-year ethnic
cleansing in federal court, asking for a chance to show
our facts. But the court ruled this was a state matter. The
sudden return of “States’ Rights”—the Klan’s legal fox-
38 How Trump Stole 2020
hole, the Segregationists’ favored legal doctrine—had,
I thought, been buried by federal law and the Warren
Supreme Court half a century ago. But here we go again.
What makes Abrams stand out is that she didn’t just
discover and raise hell about vote chicanery when she
became its victim. Abrams has been calling out Kemp’s
games for years. Although Abrams was the Legisla¬
ture’s minority leader, then-Secretary Kemp hid his
half-million-name hit list from her.
She was livid. “Why would a Secretary of State be
spending this energy trying to remove lawful voters,
instead of trying to add new voters to the rolls?”
She also pointed out what I had not discovered.
She reviewed his hit list of voters who had supposedly
moved out of the state and identified voters, from reg¬
istration dates, who, like Gulf War veteran Mitchell,
had moved into Georgia, but were purged for allegedly
moving out of the state.
And Abrams was particularly concerned about a
fact uncovered by our expert review of that early list of
half a million “movers”: the purge list included one in
seven of Georgia’s African-Americans.
And the new list of The Purged targeted, with laser
precision, renters, young voters, low-income, and
urban residents; that is, voters of color . . . the color:
Democratic Blue.
Now, how do they do that?
CHAPTER 7
The Poisoned Postcard
The US Elections Assistance Commission states:
With the implementation of the NVRA [National
Voter Registration Act] in 1994, states are required
to have evidence that a citizen is no longer living
in the jurisdiction where they were registered
before removing him or her from the registra¬
tion rolls.
In other words, you can’t just flush half a million
Georgians from the rolls, Mr. Kemp. You are “required
to have evidence.”
What exactly was Kemp’s “evidence” that was hor¬
ribly, madly, viciously, cruelly, provably wrong for no
less than 340,134 citizens of Georgia?
He ignored evidence...
39
40 How Trump Stole 2020
... from the Post Office and its complete Change of
Address registry,
... from Homeland Security,
... from the phone and electricity companies,
... from the DMV, the IRS, and his own state’s tax
authority,
... from court records, divorce decrees, credit card
companies,
... and the most reliable authority, Amazon deliv¬
eries!
In fact, he ignored every single one of the 240 data
sets “advanced address list hygiene” experts rely on.
So, how did Kemp know you moved ... and moved
out of the county? Answer:
You didn’t vote in two elections.
And?
And nothing. 'That’s it. You didn’t vote in two elections.
That’s not even among the 240 data points experts
use to determine if you’ve moved.
How Trump Stole 2020 41
Don’t you dare laugh at Mr. Kemp. Governor Kemp.
His “evidence” made him Georgia’s chief of state.
And that same single piece of evidence that you have
(moved —not voting twice— ^tos, as 1 write tMs, iEken]
away the voting rights of several million citizens from
Indiana to Michigan. And that “evidence” will re-elect
Trump.
□ □ □
PROVISIONAL PEACH
I accompanied Shabazz to the polling station as he
insisted on trying to vote for Abrams. Of course, they
wouldn’t let him. But Georgians are nice folks: the
lady in charge handed him that “I’m a Georgia voter!”
sticker with the peach painting. They also gave Shabazz
a “provisional” ballot to fill out.
Federal law requires Georgia and other states to
give a provisional ballot to anyone who claims to be
wrongly missing from voter rolls. But Georgia law does
not allow those ballots to be counted if the voter is not
on the rolls, right or wrong. Tough luck, Raheim. A
better name for provisional ballots would be “tranquil¬
izer” ballots—because they lull voters into thinking
they’ve voted, but they haven’t. So they go away happy
with their peach, not raising hell about getting shafted.
42 How Trump Stole 2020
The provisional ballot is to a real ballot as the peach
sticker is to a real peach. It was Kemp’s way of telling
Black voters like Shabazz, “Eat it!”
To be young, Black ... and provisional.
Holding the back-of-the-bus ballot
How Trump Stole 2020 43
There were enough provisional ballots and other
ballots and uncounted absentee ballots to defeat Brian
Kemp—if only they were counted. However, whether
provisional or challenged ballots are counted was up
to the Secretary of State: Brian Kemp.
Our researcher Rachel Garbus called several rural
counties, whose supervisors told her that no purged
voter would get a provisional ballot, only those that
“deserve” it. In places like Rome, Georgia, home of the
Ku Klux Klan, you can guess the color of “deserving”
voters.
That may violate federal law. But federal law applies
to America. This is Georgia.
And how does America count your provisional bal¬
lots? Short answer: we don’t. In 2016, according to the
federal Elections Assistance Commission, 2.5 million
Americans who found themselves either purged, or
in the wrong precinct, or missing ID or whatever they
were toMIMt saffl, "Ibu can’t vote here,” were |^ven;
their tranquilizer provisional ballot. (That’s just states
bothering to report.) Of those provisional ballots cast,
925,973 were never counted.
Add in the states that refuse to report how many
provisional ballots are handed out and then dumped,
and the number of provisional ballots in the electoral
dumpster easily tops a million.
Obama’s Presidential Commission on Elections
44 How Trump Stole 2020
released a study showing Black and Hispanic voters are
more than twice as likely as other voters to get the pro¬
visional ballot. Asians fare worse. And young voters?
Those 18 to 24 years old are more than twice as likely
to get the provisional placebo ballot (lets you think you
voted, but you haven’t).
□ □ □
Now, let me be fair. Kemp and his GOP comrades in
other states don’t just cross you off the voter rolls for
not voting. That would be silly.
No, Kemp sent each person who missed an election
a postcard. It asks you to tell Kemp if you are still living
where you say you’re living. Kind of an odd request.
Here is the card O
Would you notice it? Would you read it? Would you
send it back?
I showed direct-mail expert Michael Wychocki a
sample postcard. “It looks as if they’ve broken every
direct-marketing rule,” creating a card that seems
guaranteed to not be returned, says Wychocki. He
explains that marketers know people glance at unso¬
licited mail for no more than two seconds apiece, and
this “single-touch” approach—no follow-up phone
calls, emails, radio campaigns or other secondary-out¬
reach methods—ensures a deadly low response rate.
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46 How Trump Stole 2020
So, if you’re young, Black and don’t own a home, you
are only one-sixth as likely to get and return that card
as an old white fart watering their suburban lawn. And
you can expect your next ballot, like American democ¬
racy, to be provisional.
□ □ □
Even non-voting as a signal to erase a registration is
brilliantly biased. African-Americans come out to vote
in big numbers when there’s much at stake (as in the
special election for US Senator from Alabama in 2017),
but gerrymander of Black districts depresses mid-term
voting. The GOP “stacks and cracks” Black neighbor¬
hoods, either dumping (stacking) every dark-hued
voter in one district (no one runs against Rep. John
Lewis) or cracking them apart to spread them where
their votes simply don’t count. So why vote?
□ □ □
And did I mention that almost all the cards are in
English? [Maldicion!
□ □ □
And it’s not just Kemp. From Ohio to Michigan, gov-
How Trump Stole 2020 47
ernments sent out tens of millions of these junk mail
vote-killers.
How can Kemp and a score of Republican voting
officials across the nation get away with this? Surely,
the United States Supreme Court would slam down a
gavel on this con. As a matter of fact...
CHAPTER 8
Trump Re-elected
by Five Votes
(■ ■ ■ It was tte Supreme Court —or, more accurate^)
the Supreme Republican Five—that, only five months
before Kemp’s election, blessed Kemp’s Big Purge.
The ruling in June 2018, Husted v. APRI, is likely to
determine control of the White House and Congress in
2020. But it was barely noted by the press, and when
mentioned, was universally misreported.
Large-scale ethnic cleansing of voter rolls, purging
those who supposedly “moved,” was not a Kemp inven¬
tion. Kemp’s not the sharpest chainsaw in the toolshed.
The Georgian was merely following behind his fellow
Republican Secretary of State, Jon Husted of Ohio.
Like Kemp, Husted had removed half a million voters
from the rolls in the 2016 election cycle because they’d
supposedly moved their residence based on the “evi¬
dence” that they did not vote in two federal elections.
49
50 How Trump Stole 2020
For ten years, I’ve been tracking Husted. The Ohio
vote chief until recently, he is a master at finding cre¬
ative ways to block non-white voters (we’ll review a
few other Husted tricks later). But this was something
new: Husted was trying out a truly ballsy, breathtaking
method of wiping out the rights of hundreds of thou¬
sands of voters with one blow.
But Husted (and fellow GOP purgers like Kemp) had
a problem: his method of purging voter rolls is a stone-
cold, in-your-face violation of the National Voting
Registration Act of 1993 - The NVRA states, explicitly,
that a purge program
shall not result in the removal of the name of any
person from the [rolls] by reason of the person’s
failure to vote.
It’s known as the Failure-to-Vote Clause. Simple,
clear. Surely, someone would bust Husted’s scam.
And he was busted, by the lawyers for the A. Philip
Randolph Institute.
In 1925, with Jim Crow at its most virulent, it took
unimaginable courage for a Black man, A. Philip Ran¬
dolph, to organize a union of servers on passenger
trains, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.
Serving fine dinners on fine china to America’s ruling
class was one of the highest paid, most prestigious jobs
How Trump Stole 2020 51
to which an African-American could then aspire. But
while they smiled and bowed to the wealthy white men
in First Class, The Brotherhood’s members, working
unsupervised, crisscrossing the nation. North and
South, secretly spread the word of the growing civil
rights movement, a literal underground railroad of
information and complex organizing. The Brother¬
hood organized and paid for Martin Luther King’s 1963
march on Washington.
In later years, as Black men won the right to trade
serving towels for law degrees, the progeny of the
union on steel wheels continues the fight through the
A. Philip Randolph Institute (APRI).
APRI thought they’d get a quick knockout against
Husted’s clear violation of The National Voter Regis¬
tration Act. (APRI itself helped write the law.)
The NVRA begins with this assurance:
The right of citizens of the United States to vote
is a fundamental right.
Furthermore, the obligation falls on Husted, Kemp
and every official to not only protect voting, but extend
its reach:
It is the duty of the Federal, State, and local gov-
emments (to promdte) the exercise of that right.
52 How Trump Stole 2020
The NVRA was specifically designed to force resis¬
tant states to expand registration to prevent ploys that
Remove leiditimate voters from file roPsQ
The law targeted an old Jim Crow trick: make it hard
for Black people to vote, then remove them from the voter
rolls for not voting. Therefore, the explicit prohibition on
purges, “by reason of the person’s failure to vote.”
What could be more straightforward?
But Ohio’s GOP Secretary of State brilliantly used an
innocuous and reasonable exception to the no-purge
rule in the NVRA: if you move out of Ohio, you can be
removed from the rolls. Fair enough. And if you moved
from one county to the next, you had to re-register—
and give up your original registration. No issue there.
Husted purged 426,781 voters in the year leading up
to the 2016 election. This followed an earlier purge of
over half a million voters right after Obama’s reelection.
Husted’s bleaching of the voter rolls totaled a brobding-
nagian 1,035,000 voters—whom he claimed had moved
out of their county or out of Ohio altogether.
How did Husted know about this previously unno¬
ticed mass exodus from his state?
Let’s begin with how the government normally
knows you’ve moved. Usually, you tell them. When you
move to a new county and get ready to vote, you fill
out a new registration form. In addition, the US Postal
Service maintains a public Change-of-Address registry.
How Trump Stole 2020 53
another of the many ways Americans tell the govern¬
ment, “Hey, I’ve moved.” Homeowners stop paying
property taxes on homes they no longer own. You file
your taxes from a new address. Straightforward. And
if you move to another state and get a new driver’s
license, the NVRA requires every state to attach a voter
registration form to the Drivers’ License applications.
But Husted had a darker view of Americans, espe¬
cially darker Americans: they are sneaky little bastards
by nature, often failing to say they’ve moved—so they
can vote twice, at their old address and their new one.
So, Husted came up with his own plan—one which
identified voters who supposedly moved without
telling anyone: he seized on the “Inactive Voter” list.
An inactive voter is not one who pays for a gym
membership but never goes ... it’s someone who fails
to vote in one or more elections.
Husted made this astonishing claim: if a voter
misses two elections, then obviously, they’ve moved
out of their house. And they not only moved, they left
the state or the county.
So APRI thought they had Husted by the ballots: he
broke the law, the Failure-to-Vote Clause of the NVRA.
You can’t remove voters because they are “inactive.”
(In America, you have the right to vote—or not to vote.
There are lots of reasons Americans don’t vote in every
election. Maybe you do, but I don’t.)
54 How Trump Stole 2020
But Husted had a rejoinder: The Postcard. Every reg¬
istered Ohio voter who missed a couple of elections
got that postcard.
The Post Office, for a few pennies a card, will return
an undeliverable one. But most people who move in
America, says the Census, do so within their own neigh¬
borhood, their own county. A returned-as-undeliverable
card to an old address is evidence of... nothing.
But Husted went even further, way further. If the
Post Office successfully delivers a card to your regis¬
tration address, and you simply didn’t mail it back,
properly filled out, then obviously, says Husted, you’ve
moved.
Huh?
That’s right: the postcard was delivered, not
returned by the USPS, but because the voter didn’t fill
out and mail back the card (few do), this is proof pos¬
itive to Husted that the voter had moved away—and
not somewhere else in their town, but out of their
county, out of their state or out of the country.
Skipping a vote and a postcard: does that mean
you’ve secretly moved long distance? The Sixth Circuit
Court of Appeals laughed Husted’s card trick out of the
courtroom.
□ □ □
How Trump Stole 2020 55
But Husted got the last laugh: the US Supreme Court.
Those of us older than Justin Timberlake remember
the Supreme Court, especially the Warren Court, as
the defender of the rights of all Americans, the wise
and good men who gave us Brown v. Board of Educa¬
tion, desegregating our schools; who gave women the
right to have control over their own bodies; who made
official scoundrels tremble and Martin Luther King’s
dream into enforceable laws.
Then there is that Other Court, a degenerate, out-
of-control, Grand Old Party playhouse that picked our
president for us {Bush v. Gore), unleashed Billionaires’
pay-for-policy (Citizens United), and tore the heart out
of the Voting Rights Act (Shelhy v. Holder).
And the difference between these two courts is usu¬
ally just one vote and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s
successful chemotherapy and weight-lifting regimen.
In Husted v. APRI, The Fading Four put up a fight.
Justice Stephen Breyer asked the question of Ohio I
asked about Georgia: Where are all the moving vans?
Breyer wrote:
What about those registered voters—more than
1 million strong—who did not send back their
return cards? Is there any reason at all (other
than their failure to vote) to think they moved?
The answer to this question must be no. There
56 How Trump Stole 2020
is no reason at all. First, those i million or so
voters accounted for about 13% of Ohio’s voting
population. So if those 1 million or so registered
voters (or even half of them) had, in fact, moved,
then vastly more people must move each year
in Ohio than is generally true of the roughly
4% of all Americans who move to a different
county nationwide (not all of whom are regis¬
tered voters). But there is no reason to think this.
Ohio offers no such reason. And the streets of
Ohio’s cities are not filled with moving vans; nor
has Cleveland become the Nation’s residential
moving companies’ headquarters.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent brought up the ill
shadow of Dr. James Crow, that Husted’s system had an
almost telepathic way of picking out Black voters and
purging them:
African-American-majority neighborhoods in
downtown Cincinnati had 10% of their voters
removed due to inactivity [since 2012, as] com¬
pared to only 4% of voters in a suburban,
majority-white neighborhood.
But hey, a 250% Black/White differential? For the
GOP five, that’s a bonus.
How Trump Stole 2020 57
Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the GOP Five, dis¬
misses the argument that “the human tendency not to
return cards received in the mail” (i.e., throw out junk)
is not evidence that voters have not moved.
And the truth is^at the vote protection advocates
presented no hard evidence proving these voters had
(not moved,) Common sense and “human tendency”
didn’t cut it.
With the Court’s blessing in hand, GOP Secretaries
of State went to work on the voter rolls—beginning
with Kemp’s Georgia vote roll pogrom, followed by Ari¬
zona, Michigan, Florida and others—the Big Erasing
added up to millions blocked from voting... and they
don’t know it.
And so, by a vote of 5 to 4, the Supreme Court has
re-elected Trump.
NOW, LET ME PLAY NURSE
Husted V. APRI comes down to something exception¬
ally simple: Has someone moved if they have failed to
(vote ah^o return apdstci^^
That’s it. Nothing else.
The Republican Five argue that failure to return a post¬
card is a reasonable way to test if someone’s moved—and
the GOP Justices noted, despite the Democratic Four’s
protest, that the claim that Americans have many reasons
58 How Trump Stole 2020
not to vote, and most folks just throw away postcards, is
not measurable proof they did not move. Who is right?
Millions of votes—and Trump’s re-election—hang
on the answer.
Now, imagine the Supreme Court as a group of doc¬
tors standing at a distance from a patient’s bed. They
are arguing about whether the patient has a fever. All
five Republican doctors vote that the patient has a
fever. The Democrat MDs dissent. A loud argument
draws the attention of a nurse who walks into the
room, flips the patient over, inserts a thermometer,
pulls it out and declares, “98.6 degrees. No fever.”
Now let me play nurse. Because we know there is
a thermometer which can tell if a voter has moved: a
simple, ridiculously quick and cheap, name-by-name
way to verify the location of every voter right now:
the Advanced Address List Hygiene that we used in
Georgia. And it’s criminal, insane, and criminally
insane that this reliable method for confirming voter
addresses has not been used.
Before the Kemp-Abrams race, Husted and company
could plead ignorance. But we’ve shown them in our
reports (and in a courtroom, Stacey Abrams has shown
Kemp) exactly how to do it right, to spare the vote of
innocents.
But the GOP eraser-heads are fighting tooth and nail
for the right to get it wrong.
CHAPTER 9
Schindler’s Black List
So, why didn’t you read about the 340,134 voters that
Kemp illegally slashed from the voter rolls? And why
didn’t you read about the hundreds of thousands
removed for “moving residence” in Ohio who never
moved at all?
Because there was good news to report instead. In
October 2019, the New York Times ran a heartening
article that Husted’s replacement as Secretary of State,
Republican Frank LaRose, had prevented the wrongful
purge of 40,000 voters.
Frank LaRose is shown photographed in a thoughtful
and heroic pose next to his office window.* The Times
* Note: Anytime a paper wants someone to look thoughtful and heroic, they
photo their chosen hero next to a window, partly lit with natural light, shot
slightly below eye level, with the hero not looking at the camera but rather
looking out the window deep in higher thoughts. With that pose and lighting,
you could make Bugs Bunny seem like Albert Schweitzer. My fellow journalists
will hate me for letting you in on this. F’m.
59
60 How Trump Stole 2020
article was full of praise for the Ohio GOP official for
having published the purge list.
A concerned amateur, Steve Tingley-Hock of Marys¬
ville, Ohio, simply matched the list of purged voters
to the list of active voters—and found some 40,000
about to lose their vote had, in fact, recently voted.
LaRose removed them from the purge list. The New
York Times and local hacks couldn’t praise LaRose
enough for saving those 40,000 from electoral capital
punishment.
The Times reported:
Around 40,000 people, nearly one in five names
on the list, shouldn’t have been on it, the state
determined. And it found out before anyone was
actually turned away at a polling place ...
Every wrongfully purged voter’s registration was
saved—by the Republican officials! Hey, and you
thought I only write about evil, racist vote-snatching.
The Columbus Dispatch repeated this heartwarming
story but noted that, hmmm, nearly one out of three
purged voters not restored was age 25 to 34 : Democrats
outnumbered Republicans almost 2 to 1.
The local rag also joined in the praise for the
thoughtful, heroic LaRose, allowing him to blame
“human error, vendor errors.” Those dang humans!
How Trump Stole 2020 61
Those darned vendors! The Dispatch added, “just one
software glitch.” Damned software glitches!
But, hey, remember the happy ending: the error was
caught “before anyone was actually turned away at a
polling place.”
nan
I saw similar stories around the country, as “investi¬
gative” reporters did the simple thing, imitating the
amateur from Marysville, checking active voter lists
against purge lists and finding errors—lots of folks
who had never skipped an election.
Wow.
□ □ □
This appears to be good investigative reporting by the
Fourth Estate.
But there’s something wrong.
Remember what Rusted v. APRI was all about? As
the Supreme Court states in the Ruling’s opening, the
case was about “removal of ineligible voters from state
voting rolls” made
ineligible “by reason of" a change in residence.
62 How Trump Stole 2020
It’s all about the National Voter Registration Act’s
requirements that a State must meet in order to
remove a name on change-of-residence grounds.
Nothing more. Nothing less. It’s not about whether a
voter voted or whether a voter is “inactive. ” (Remember
the “Failure to Vote” clause?)
Non-voting is not the issue. The single and only
issue is whether the voter changed their residence,
iihbved. from tEecbuhtl' or stately
Did the Times review the rolls to determine if voters
had moved? Nope. (I asked.) Did NPR or the Columbus
Dispatch check if the “moved” had in fact moved?
Nope.
In other words, LaRose had the last laugh. He was
happy to concede his list was 20% wrong—damn
human vendor glitches!... When he had to know that
the list is at least 80% wrong, as we found in Georgia.
You can’t fool all the people all the time, Lincoln
noted, unless they are reporters.
It’s as if a German journalist said to Hitler, “Your
deportation list of Jews . . . it’s wrong! 20% of the
people on the list... aren’t Jews!”
No, the problem is not that the list is 20% wrong. It’s
that creating the list is wrong.
CHAPTER 10
Stealing Wisconsin 2020
In February of 2020, following the smell of another
voter list burning, I flew to Milwaukee. I met Sequanna
Taylor, who was furious.
“I was on the purge list!”
That’s rnbt art uhu sual cb m^&t Sm^alvomah)
of color in Wisconsin. What is unusual is that Taylor
is a Milwaukee County Supervisor. (Her name is on)
the ballot. Only a tip-off from a Milwaukee Sentinel
reporter allowed her to save her right to vote for her¬
self.
In 2016, Trump officially won Wisconsin by a dinky
(22.748 votes out of 3 minion cast.)
That’s too close for GOP comfort, because Wis¬
consin is a big deal, likely to be the swing state in 2020
that it was in 2016.
So first, in the waning hours of 2019, the Republi¬
can-controlled legislature ended the right to vote on the
63
64 How Trump Stole 2020
Sunday before Election Day—that is, outlawed Souls-
to-the-Polls Day when most African-Americans vote.
That wasn’t enough. The Republicans then passed
a law to erase 232,597 voters from the rolls in 2020,
ten times Trump’s 2016 margin. The grounds would
be “evidence” that a voter had moved provided by a
airivate contractor.) The newly threatened voters, like
Supervisor Taylor, are suspiciously concentrated in
the Black-majority city of Milwaukee and among stu¬
dent voters in Madison.
But Republicans have run into an obstacle to their
new vote suppression plan: voters.
A little background: Milwaukee has the worst
employment rate for African-Americans of any city in
the USA. In 2018, the unemployed revolted, and despite
the minefield of crazy Wisconsin ID laws, registration
purges and other traps laid between African-Amer¬
icans and the polling station, a surge of Black voters
tossed GOP Governor Scott Walker out on his keister
and replaced him with Democrat Tony Evers. Elected
with Evers: a 33-year-old Black man, Mandela Barnes, as
Lieutenant Governor.
The Lt. Governor raised hell about vote suppres¬
sion, and the Elections Board, half in Democratic
hands, refused to purge the additional 232,000 voters
demanded by the Legislature. The hit list is hopelessly
filled with errors.
How Trump Stole 2020 65
So, the good guys win! Don’t count on it. In January
2020 , a think tank, the Wisconsin Institute for Law
and Liberty (WILL), sued to force the state to purge
all voters on the list. And WILL found a hack judge to
order the removal of all 232,000.
That’s why I flew to Wisconsin in February 2020,
to meet with Lt. Gov. Barnes and find out who is WILL
and who is on their hit list. And what color are those
hit?
As I write, the state Elections Board has appealed
the order to purge—but the appeal goes to Wisconsin’s
violently right-wing judiciary. Good luck with that.
What is the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty?
Now, I’m a fan of law and liberty, so I was interested in
whose generosity supported WILL.
WILL, it turns out, is the beard for the Bradley
Family—which had sold their business, Allen-Bradley
Manufacturing. Allen-Bradley factories once employed
thousands, the biggest employer of Black unionized
labor in the city.
The company still casts a shadow on Milwaukee: it
constructed a replica of London’s Big Ben, only bigger.
And there’s another shadow: Allen-Bradley facto¬
ries were sold off for $1.6 billion, and ultimately, close
to 20,000 jobs were shifted from Milwaukee to Ghina
and 97 other countries.
The Bradleys sliced off nearly a billion dollars of
66 How Trump Stole 2020
their sell-off gain to put into a foundation that funds
right-wing causes—a cash bucket as big as the Koch
operation, including $6 million for WILL.
ANOTHER QUARTER MILLION
Wisconsin Elections Commissioner Ann Jacobs is a
blunt-talking attorney. The purpose of WILL’S lawsuit,
she said, is simple:
This massive purge is clearly an attempt to gain
an advantage in Wisconsin for the Republi¬
cans, particularly for the presidential race that’s
coming up.
Jacobs notes that federal law allows removing voters
based on “reliable” information—and the OOP’s new
purge list was anything but. The Elections Board knows
the list is racially poisoned and filled with errors—but
had no idea how to prove it.
I did. I re-gathered the “Advanced Address List
Hygiene” team to evaluate this list of a quarter million
voters that WILL insisted was based on reliable infor¬
mation that these voters had moved to another state.
Understand that this new purge list of a quarter mil¬
lion residents is in addition to the 99,000 purged a year
earlier using the Huste^lCemp “inactive voter” con.
How Trump Stole 2020 67
This new list was, said WILL, “reliable information
voters had moved their residence.” Really?
Our experts reviewed the list of 232,597 voters,
name by name, to be purged for moving from the state
or county:
□ Only one in four, 62 , 433 , of the voters had
moved out of Wisconsin or out of their registra¬
tion county.
□ And, admittedly, 156 moved on (died).
□ Add it up. The WILL/GOP hitlist will remove
170,008 Wisconsin voters for moving from the
state or county—though they didn’t.
While not every address could be confirmed, we are
certain that 97,135 moved, including County Super¬
visor Taylor, locally, within their county—that is,
are still legally registered.
And Lenser and group report that another 48,728
have never moved from their registration address
at all. (A couple thousand— 2 , 455 —likely left the
country.)
The two biggest counties in Wisconsin, and the two
biggest Democratic counties, are Dane County (home
of Madison and Bernie Bro central, the University of
68 How Trump Stole 2020
Wisconsin), and Milwaukee, center of the state’s Black
population. Together, Dane and Milwaukee account
for 24.4% of the state’s voting age population. Yet, just
these two counties account for 34-6% of the total on
the “mover” list of those targeted for electoral execu-
(tion.j ln other words, you’re 39 % more likely to be on
the hit list if you’re in the two big Democratic counties.
So who came up with the bogus, biased voter hit
list?
The answer could have knocked me over with a
feather...
CHAPTER 11
ERIC Crow, Jim Crow’s
Liberal Twin
If I had to choose the organization that has done the
most to threaten the votes of the non-white voter, it
wouldn’t be the Ku Klux Klan nor the Proud Boys nor
the white supremacists chanting, “Jews Won’t Replace
Us!” These are frightening clowns marked by easy-to-
spot Day-Glo racism. They’re violent, but not likely to
stop many voters.
Rather, for the real purge-meisters, think of the
sponsors of PBS’ NewsHour. And, “Doo-de-doo-doo!
It’s All Things Considered!”
The Pew Charitable Trust. It’s the Pew Trust that
founded ERIC, the Electronic Registration Infor¬
mation Center, the purge operation that tagged
Milwaukee County Supervisor Sequanna Taylor a
(*mover.* that is, a potential fraudulent voter who
must lose her vote.
69
70 How Trump Stole 2020
Look at this nice woman
in the photo, “Mrs. Pew.”
Actually, her name is
Rebecca W. Rimel, Pres¬
ident of the Pew Trust.
She looks like the kind
old lady down the street
with too many cats who
will look in on yours when
you’re on vacation.
Just don’t leave your voter
rolls with her. When you come home, you’ll find them
bleached white and oddly shrunken.
And let me be utterly clear: (I don't far a minute
believe that the Pew Trust is out to wipe away Afri¬
can-American voting rights; just the opposite, they are
the quintessential do-gooders. They just don’t do any
good.
In fact, they are the mindless purveyors of the most
invidious of evils, providing a liberal PBS-y endorse¬
ment of vote suppression tropes, in particular, the
canard that there are people dangerously registered in
two states! A threat to the Republic!
The GOP is thrilled to have liberal Pew on their side.
I suspect the Republican Five on the Supreme Court
considered it an inside joke that their vicious Husted
decision opened by quoting the liberal Pew Trust:
How Trump Stole 2020 71
It has been estimated that 24 million voter reg¬
istrations in the United States—about one in
eight—are either invalid or significantly inac¬
curate. (Pew Center on the States ...) And about
2.75 million people are said to be registered to
vote in more than one State. Ibid, (Pew).
But when Dorothy chanted in The Wizard of Oz,
“LIONS AND TIGERS AND BEARS, OH MY!” the audi¬
ence knows the danger is a joke, silly nonsense.
But in a Supreme Court decision, it’s dangerous
nonsense. Yes, 2.75 million people are registered
twice—^but so what? They don’t vote twice. In fact,
less than 2.75 individuals on average are caught voting
twice in any year, according to Lorraine Minnite, the
Rutgers University expert on fraudulent voting.
But hundreds of thousands of voters who land on
Pew’s list will lose their right to vote, just to prevent a
fraud that doesn’t happen.
And what does Pew recommend a secretary of state do
when threatened by millions of voters registered in two
states? Arrest double-voting criminals—^both of them?
No. Pew says that the state should send half a million dol¬
lars to Pew, and Pew will provide a list of “movers.”
vTtovers.'nt turns out, are students, low-income)
voters and renters, Latinx and Black voters. And, as
(We'Ve R)urui out, most §MnT move.)
72 How Trump Stole 2020
Pew does not tell Secretaries of State to remove
these voters. Rather, Pew just makes up the hit list, tells
the states (mostly Republican) to mail out those Jim
Crow cards—and lets the states do the dirty work.
Pew’s ERIC creates a list of millions of names of
voters supposedly registered in two states, including
Virginia, Wisconsin, Ohio and others, many of them
Democrat controlled, used to scrub voters.
Pew’s ERIC hands Ohio and Virginia the bullets, then
turns its back, not looking to see if the bullets are fired.
It’s difficult to find a dissent to the Pew purge. What
liberal can object to a program that is promoted by an
op-ed in the Washington Post?
But dissent there is. Barbara Arnwine, for decades
the head of Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under
Law, teaches at both Columbia University and UCLA
law schools. Prof. Arnwine is founder of the Trans¬
formative Justice Coalition. In 2020, Arnwine told me
she’s livid that the Pew Trust’s purge promotion has
gone without public criticism:
ERIC should be called ERROR because it’s that
erroneous and that full of flaws. ERIC claims
to find people who’ve moved. Now, apparently
almost half the people on the list are young
people. Listen, in Wisconsin in 2018 during the
primary election, suddenly 44,000 people found
How Trump Stole 2020 73
themselves ineligible to vote. They had been
purged. Turns out, the administrators of ERIC
admitted an error in their own system that mis-
identified 44,000 people.
When a purge pirate is caught wrongly removing
voters, they admit to a small “mistake”—though
44,000 was twice Trump’s victory margin.
No newspaper dared challenge Pew nor bother to ask
for the ERIC list of the condemned—until I got suspi¬
cious. I asked them for their lists beginning in 2014 and
got turned dovm—^because Pew claims it is above the fed¬
eral law requiring transparency in the removal of voters.
And sending gobs of cash to America’s liberal media
keeps hands open and mouths shut.
But then the Wisconsin Elections Board made
the list public—and we discovered that the 44,000
wrongly identified were, in fact, just a fourth of the
wrongly tagged.
How could this be? Unlike the Kemp/Husted purge
lists. Pew’s list are “evidence-based” and “non-partisan.”
How do I know? They say so right on their web site:
The Pew Charitable Trusts uses
evidence-based, nonpartisan analysis
to solve today’s challenges
74 How Trump Stole 2020
As a good citizen always in favor of solving today’s
challenges, and as a reporter for Rolling Stone, I
decided to call ERIC himself, that is, the chief of Pew’s
ERIC voter purge program, David Becker, to ask him
about his “evidence.”
Our address hygiene experts used over two hundred
databases to verify one James Brown from another.
ERIC uses three to eight. No social security numbers
(though states generally list the last four digits).
Has Pew ever done a review of the list by experts?
No, that’s “left to the states.” Pew tells the states not to
use the raw list to purge voters but Pew does not check
if, as in Wisconsin, the ERIC “movers” list is used for a
Jim Crow operation.
Pew did not set out to become the weapon for ethnic
(cfcansing.JJust the opposite: it was meant to find voters
who moved from one state or county to another. Its
25 member states are supposed to use the list to send
moved voters cards to encourage them to register. Does
Pew make sure the cards are sent to add registrations?
Nope. Does Pew take action if a state, as most do, uses
it to wipe away registrations? Nope. Pew simply turned
over the operation to the control of the partisan hacks
who use it to purge voters.
Does Becker know whom his list targets? “No
question,” he told me, proudly, “the most highly
mobile—the poor. Black, the young...”
How Trump Stole 2020 75
But Pew’s intentions are good: to get those poor
Black young folk back on the voter rolls. The fact that it
does the opposite, targeting the Sequanna Taylors for
elimination of their rights, well, that’s none of Pew’s
business. That’s up to the states. Pew, Pontius Pilate
style, washes its hands of the electronic lynchings.
And what exactly is the danger of someone who
moved out of Ohio to California remaining on the rolls
until the change-of-address form hits from the Post
Office? America simply is not awash in illegal double
voters. And Becker admitted as much to me:
99.999% of those people were not thinking of
(voting twice in two states!)
But the states from Virginia to Ohio are removing
hundreds of thousands of voters on the grounds they
are preventing this crime by 0.001%. (Though even
that teensy sum is way exaggerated.)
Lori Shellenberger of the ACLU blocked ERIC in
California because, as she told me, it’s just nuts to
remove hundreds of thousands of voters from the rolls
to prevent a crime, double voting, that is not com¬
mitted—knowing that even a small percentage of false
positives will result in thousands, even tens of thou¬
sands, losing their voting rights.
But it’s all OK, because Pew’s targets can easily get
76 How Trump Stole 2020
their votes back. They only have to return that post¬
card. Since only 4% return those cards, Pew must have
it 96% correct.
Is it Pew’s fault if no one returns the cards?
After all, the card was designed by an expert.
Who?
Click your slipper heels together, Dorothy, we’re
going back to Kansas...
CHAPTER 12
Aliens Invade Kansas!
I never got to say a proper goodbye to Kris, the Brian
Kemp of Kansas. As Kansas Secretary of State he was in
charge of its voter rolls—and, as I’ll explain, in charge
of Georgia’s and several other states’ as well.
When we last parted, Kobach was screaming, “Liar!
Liar!” while backing away to escape from me, the
plastic spoon from the vanilla ice cream still in his
mouth.
I had hired a combat-trained cameraman from Paris
to join me on this fraught assignment for Rolling Stone:
to film white people in their natural habitat, what
anthropologists call an “Ice Cream Social,” a Repub¬
lican Party fund-raiser in Wichita, Kansas—and get
out alive.
OK, that was a little over-the-top, but then, Kobach
had just founded a company to make “family-friendly”
automatic weapons (which he claimed would not have
77
78 How Trump Stole 2020
to be registered). And he’d bolted a 50-caliber machine
gun to the top of his jeep.
I could see Kobach’s minions under a tent in the park
scooping out the ice cream: no chocolate, only vanilla.
Of course.
I played a local TV reporter with one of those cubes
on the microphone with the number 4 on it, “Blindwit-
ness News” or whatever NBC calls it. My lame disguise
worked.
I shook Kobach’s hand—and wouldn’t let go until I
was in good body-blocking position. When I put on my
fedora, Kobach recognized me and would have bolted.
.. except for the Pledge of Allegiance. He had to freeze
in place, hand over heart: “... Under God, with liberty
and justice for all.”
It was 2016, and I’d been on Kobach’s trail, him
ducking, for three years. Why Kansas? Why Kobach?
Because Kris Kobach was more responsible than any
other person in America for putting Donald Trump
into the White House. And Trump was more than
appreciative.
In 2016, Republicans had a problem: there simply
weren’t enough white guys to elect Donald Trump. The
Census reports that the white vote has dropped by a
fifth, from 87.6% in 1980 to 73 . 3 % of the voting popula¬
tion in 2016. (Not every white guy votes Republican, so
73.3% white is not enough for the GOP to feel secure.)
How Trump Stole 2020 79
So there was only one way for the GOP to win in
2016, and the only way they can win in 2020: eliminate
non-white voters.
And Kobach has The Erasers, the magic ways to
simply remove a couple million wrong-colored voters
from the voter rolls. By the time I shook his hand in
2016, one of his schemes—Crosscheck (we’ll get to
that)—had already purged 1.1 million from the rolls,
too many of them Black, Hispanic and Asian-Amer-
ican, quite silently, in Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina
and 26 other states, a stealth purge crucial to Trump’s
victo^
In 2020, Kobach may choose our president for us
again.
The “confirmation” postcard used by Kemp, by
Husted and most GOP-run states was designed by
Kobach’s office, designed to be an unreadable block
of print, designed to get you to throw it away, to throw
your vote awaf witBiL)
Kobach has Trump’s ear—and, God help us. Trump
listens.
□ □ □
Kobach had been working on whitening the voter rolls,
and whitening America, since college days. He was the
lawyer for FAIR (Federation for American Immigra-
80 How Trump Stole 2020
tion Reform) whose founder stated its purpose was to
maintain “a European-American majority.”
Kobach had drafted Arizona’s infamous SB1070 Act,
dubbed the “Driving While Brown” law by the ACLU,
and he was the legal advisor to Arizona Sheriff Joe
Arpaio, who was found guilty of criminal violation of
the Civil Rights of Hispanic Americans.
Kobach’s alien hunt was lucrative. He drafted a law for
Farmers Branch, Texas, which banned sales to “illegal
immigrants,” like selling one a Slurpee. Kobach pock¬
eted a $100,000 fee and the town nearly went bankrupt
when the courts found the law unconstitutional.
Kobach proudly told me he’s the one who convinced
Trump that Mexico would pay for The Wall.
Kobach is a wizard with databases and demo¬
graphics. Fresh out of school, he was hired by the
Department of Homeland Security, where he created a
database that tracked Muslims as they traveled across
the US. President George W. Bush found it so dis¬
turbingly racist that the President personally ordered
Kobach’s Muslim tracker shut down. (Kobach had the
last word: it was he who suggested Trump’s Muslim
travel ban.)
Though caged by Bush, Kobach’s dark arts would
soon be unchained.
Because, beginning in 2011, beside his side gig as
an arms dealer, Kobach became Kansas’ Secretary of
How Trump Stole 2020 81
State, the man who decides who’s allowed on the voter
rolls and who gets erased, purged.
And his creative use of that power has given
him huge influence to spread his purge gospel and
spreadsheets to other states through the Republican
Secretaries of State Cdmmittee 7 a gproup alhiost as:
influential in determining our president as the Elec¬
toral College.
ALIEN MOTHERSHIP
Our President has warned us:
And then those illegals [aliens] get out and vote,
because they vote anyway. Don’t kid yourself.
Those numbers in California and numerous
other states, they’re rigged. They’ve got people
voting that shouldn’t be voting.
Once they arrive, the Democrat Party’s vision
is to offer them free health care, free welfare, free
education, and even the right to vote.
They’re here! Look!
But Kobach is ready for them. For the 2020 election
(and especially 2024 and 2028—^yes, they think that
far ahead), Kobach has authored laws in Arizona, Ala¬
bama and Kansas which require Americans to prove
82 How Trump Stole 2020
we’re Americans in order to vote. That is, the laws
require “proof of citizenship” to register to vote.
Sounds reasonable. Only citizens should vote. So
what’s wrong with proving you’re a citizen to vote?
The problem for voters is that this is not Red China:
we don’t have citizen cards nor citizenship chips in our
skulls. (Not yet.)
A driver’s license is not proof of citizenship. Aliens,
like my wife, have driver’s licenses so they can drive
cars (or spaceships), not vote.
So for tens of millions of Americans, proving you’re
v^cTfizen is a BifcE The only documents that prove cit¬
izenship in America are a passport and certified birth
certificate. Not many homeboys in the projects have
their passports from their ski vacations in the Alps.
And a whole lot of Americans can’t find their original
birth certificates, if they ever had one.
Kobach’s proof-of-citizenship went for a test drive
in Arizona. His supporters claimed the law would also
stop terrorists from entering the US to vote. About
30,000 Arizonans lost their right to vote. All Ameri¬
cans, but hey, we all have to sacrifice something unless
we want Al-Qaeda to choose our school board.
In 2008 1 investigated these skanky illegals myself in
Arizona, including Shirley Preiss, who claimed she was
born before birth certificates were given out in rural
backwoods. My interrogation was not easy: Shirley, at
How Trump Stole 2020 83
97 years old, was having a hard time hearing. She wore
a dress and hat printed with American flags—but she
couldn’t fool me.
“Shirley, are you a terrorist?”
“Errorist?”
Her son, no spring chicken himself, shouted into
her ear: “Terrorist! You blow up buildings. Mom?”
CHAPTER 13
Von Spakovsky’s Icicle
Trump got his intelligence on the wave of alien voters
from Kris Kobach. But where did Kobach get this stuff?
Answer: From this man in the Fox studio, Hans
von Spakovsky. Don’t be prejudiced against Von Spa-
kovsky because of his Trumpian comb-over, wet lips.
Dr. Mengele glasses or his silly use of the German royal
“von.” Rather, what’s disconcerting is Von Spakovsky’s
ability to create Fox Facts.
Fox Facts are not facts as you and I know them. We
think of facts as bits of truth, nice little nuggets of
reality. But here, under the heading “FOX FACTS,” is
Von Spakovsky’s claim that “6.4% of all non-US citi¬
zens voted in the 2008 election.”
Let’s do some arithmetic. Add the 11.3 million “illegal
immigrants” to the 13.2 million legal permanent resi¬
dents and we have a total of 24.5 million aliens in the
US. If 6.4% voted, that’s 1.6 million foreigners commit-
85
86 How Trump Stole 2020
ting the felony crime of voting in each of our elections!
jCaramba!
That’s why Obama won! That’s a fact! That is, a “FOX
FACT.”
Now, FOX FACTS would be harmless, but Von Spa-
kovsky’s whoppers have earned him a succession of
Presidential appointments to positions of power where
he has exterminated voting rights on a mass scale.
As a lawyer for George W. Bush in 2000, he was
on the team that successfully argued to disqualify
179,855 ballots cast in Florida, mostly in Black coun¬
ties, thereby making Bush President. {That’s worth an
explanation ... later.) Bush rewarded Von Spakovsky
by appointing him to run the Justice Department Civil
Rights Division where his job was to protect the voting
rights of African-Americans. Half of the Civil Rights
division staff quit.
There, Von Spakovsky helped Bush Jr. write the Help
America Vote Act. (When a Bush tells you he’s going to
“help” you vote, look out.) Bush then appointed him to
the Federal Elections Commission.
Earlier on. Von Spakovsky was on the Fulton County
Board of Election (Atlanta)—for which he was qual¬
ified by his also serving as Chairman of the county’s
Republican Party. (Only in America!)
In 2017, President Trump appointed Von Spakovsky
to the Presidential Commission on Election Integrity—
How Trump Stole 2020 87
and appointed Kobach its chief—to give them federal
authority to hunt the wily alien voter. (They lost their
jobs for violating federal meeting rules, sadly, before
they could find an alien.)
But what earns Von Spakovsky a photo and cameo
here is his role as the expert witness defending
Kobach’s Prove-You’re-a-Citizen law, explaining to a
federal judge in Kansas the Fox Facts about the Alien
Invasion.
In 2016, Kobach took his prove-you’re-a-citizen
law for a test drive in Kansas. He successfully blocked
35,314 aliens from registering to vote. Two were Air
Force officers stationed in Kansas. Kobach was then
sued by a group he calls “The Communist League
of Woman Voters.” (I called the League to ask if they
were functionaries of the Communist Party and got a
stern answer: “We are non-partisan, unaffiliated with
any political party.” Of course a Communist would say
that.)
Kobach had to admit in court that every one of these
35,314 voters he blocked—including two Air Force offi¬
cers—were US citizens. But, he argued, his law could
stop an alien in the future —because there were mil¬
lions of them voting in the USA.
University of Florida professor Michael McDonald
went through the list of the blocked “aliens” and
found that an astonishing 44-6% were young, 18 to 29
88 How Trump Stole 2020
years old. I’m sure it was not lost on Kobach, former
Chairman of the Kansas GOP, that this demographic
was leaning 55 % to 36% Democratic.
Low-income registrants were also blocked. One
Kansan, who worked in a federal prison, could afford
neither the time off nor the $50 to get a certified copy
of her birth certificate. Kobach did not seem moved
by the loss of impecunious Kansans. Maybe because
those earning less than $50,000 per year vote 53 % to
41% voted against the GOP.
So, Kobach wheeled Von Spakovsky into the court¬
room as the expert with the proof of the alien invasion.
Unfortunately, the judge clearly did not value FOX
FACTS. Federal District Court Judge Julie Robinson
found Von Spakovsky a bit of an alien to a court¬
room, not a typical expert witness. In another life, I
was an expert witness in major racketeering cases. It
required academic credentials, certified experience
and evidence-supported facts. Judge Julie was not so
impressed by a witness whose qualifications amounted
to getting Bush elected and appearing on Fox News.
The experts noted that just four aliens had been
caught voting in all of the USA. But Kobach insisted this
was just “the tip of the iceberg.” The judge concluded.
This trial was his opportunity to produce credible
evidence of that iceberg, but [Kobach] failed to do
How Trump Stole 2020 89
SO_Instead, the Court draws the more obvious
conclusion that there is no iceberg; only an icicle,
largely created by confusion and administrative
error.
Kobach, Von Spakovsky and Trump still insist that
over a million aliens have risked 5 years prison and
automatic deportation to vote. The Secretary of State
of Kansas has unique authority to arrest any illegal
voter. So, then, why didn’t Kobach hand-cuff a few
thousand?
Maybe because they don’t exist.
Back in 2016, Kobach called me to say he was on the
cusp of a mass arrest of illegal alien voters. It was quite
exciting, the Big Bust coming. Kobach got on Fox TV to
announce that there were “50 Somalians stealing my
vote” in Kansas!
With Kobach’s power to arrest illegal voters, I was
waiting to see the bust. “Fifty Somalians stealing my
vote”! I admit I was puzzled that Kobach was so care¬
less as to leave his vote where 50 Somalians could
simply grab it. But more puzzling was his failure to
arrest even one.
Now, I’ve been to Kansas and I can tell you that
would be very difficult for 50 Somalians to hide in^
crowd at the Topeka Corn Festival.
Still more puzzling: Voters provide their name and
90 How Trump Stole 2020
address and show up at the polls. Or, they provide their
address to get a mail-in ballot. As a former detective, I
can tell you grabbing an illegal voter would be histo¬
ry’s easiest stake-out. Still, the wily Somalians slipped
Kobach’s dragnet—as did over a million illegal alien
voters nationwide.
Because it’s hard to bust criminals ... when no one
has committed the crime.
Kobach, hoping to change my story I was about to
file in Rolling Stone, called me to say that “indictments
are on the way.” How many? With a million and a half
illegal voters including 50 Somalian Democrats nearby,
Kobach finally busted the alien voter crime wave: one.
Taking a bit of the shine off his multi-year, multi-mil¬
lion dollar hunt was that the one guy he finally busted
(was an American citizen.) The poor schmuck had regis¬
tered before his official citizenship ceremony.
How Trump Stole 2020 91
□ □ □
Now, let’s stop chuckling. Kobach speaks to the Presi¬
dent of the United States on a regular basis. You don’t
and I don’t.
Here’s the reality sandwich and we have to eat it:
1. The State of Kansas is appealing the decision
overturning their Proof of Citizenship require¬
ment to vote. It will go to the Supreme Court,
i.e., the Grand Inquisitors who gave us Husted
and Citizens United. Good luck.
2. “Prove-You’re-an-American” is sitting on the
books of several swing states, un-dead on the
books, waiting for this Supreme Court to let it
rise from its crypt.
3. Think “Prove-You’re-a-Citizen” won’t spread?
The requirement for a voter to produce a photo
ID began in 2008 in just one state, Indiana, and
didn’t spread until the 2013 Shelby decision.
Then it hit 32 states, five in one day. “Prove
You’re an American” will spread in days, even
hours of a court approval, which is likely.
Judge Robinson found Kobach in contempt of court
92 How Trump Stole 2020
and, for his doofus antics in the courtroom, ordered him
back to law school—no kidding—to learn proper court
procedure. The Eastern newspapers were gloating over
the dunce cap the court put on Kobach’s head.
I’m not giggling. I don’t underestimate my targets.
Especially Professor of Law Kobach, who graduated at the
top of his class at Harvard, attended Oxford and got his
law degree from Yale. Laugh at Kobach? Only at your peril.
Especially if your name is James Brown.
CHAPTER 14
James Brown
Voted 568 Times
Listen to this:
You have people registered in two states. They’re
registered in New York and in New Jersey. They
vote twice. There are millions of votes in my
opinion.
They vote many times, not just twice, not just
three times. It’s like a circle. They come back, they
put a new hat on. They come back, they put a new
shirt on. And in many cases, they don’t even do
that. You know what’s going on. It’s a rigged deal.
I usually don’t quote guys who wear tin foil hats and
get messages from another planet. But this is an excep¬
tion: I’m quoting the President of the United States,
Donald J. Trump.
93
94 How Trump Stole 2020
Don’t laugh. Trump’s claim that millions of Amer¬
icans are voting twice, a felony crime, is the principal
reason Donald J. Trump won the presidency. Because,
in the year before the 2016 election, 1.1 million of these
felonious double voters were removed from the voter
rolls.
Or, to be accurate, 1.1 million voters were removed
because they were accused of voting or registering in
two states.
With all these double voters, who put their address
on their registrations, you’d think it would be darn easy
to find them, that the jails would be full of these crim¬
inals. After all, the man who created this list of double
voters said, “Double voting: it’s a slam-dunk to prove
that.” But somehow Trump’s minions, who directed a
national man-hunt, can’t find them. Why?
Maybe because they are not criminals, because they
did not vote twice.
Could our President have it wrong? When asked
where Trump got this number of millions of double
voters, the White House cited a law professor with a
Harvard-Yale-Oxford pedigree: Kris Kobach of Kansas.
News outlets dismissed the claim as Trump’s goofy
repetition of another Kris Kobach fevered fantasy.
I dismissed nothing. My team’s investigation of the
national mass purge of alleged double voters is now in
its seventh year. The work began in 2013 for A 1 Jazeera
How Trump Stole 2020 95
America, then with AJAM’s death moved to Rolling
Stone, then to the Guardian. And we are not done.
INTERSTATE CROSSCHECK
Besides his day job as Secretary of State of Kansas
and side gig with automatic weapons, in 2013, Kobach
became the chief of the national “Interstate Cross¬
check” program.
The concept was simple and, at first glance, quite
reasonable: member states would share their voter
registries with Kobach, who would look for voters
registered in two states—“potential double voters,”
Kobach called them—and remove the duplicates from
the voter rolls.
Who could argue with that?
In fact, the press, not just Fox but NBC and literally
hundreds of outlets, right to left, praised “Interstate
Crosscheck” as the brilliant use of computers to stop
double voting fraud.
At its peak, thirty states joined Crosscheck. Almost
all were Republican controlled, but some Democratic
voting officials joined with enthusiasm. Who can
defend fraudulent voters?
But this bothered me: On Kobach’s Crosscheck site,
the number of potential double voters, by 2015, totaled
7,264,422.
96 How Trump Stole 2020
Seven million double voter suspects? (Or, as Kobach
would have it, 3.6 million Americans voting or regis¬
tering twice.)
I was curious. Who are they? What are their names?
So, I got hold of the list.
The number one perp is a crew of double voters
who all, interestingly, share the name James Brown. In
Georgia alone, 288 voters named James Brown wrongly
frejbtereflm a second state.)
Here is a direct screenshot from the Crosscheck list.
VoterState
Rr5t Name
Middie Name
Last Name
Suffix Name
Nebraska
James
L
Brown
Georgia
JAMES
AARON
BROWN
Nebraska
James
E
Brown
Jr
Georgia
JAMES
0
BROWN
Ohio
JAMES
A
BROWN
Georgia
JAMES
L
BROWN
Ohio
JAMES
D
BROWN
Georgia
JAMES
HERSCHEL
BROWN
Ohio
JAMES
DONALD
BROWN
Georgia
JAMES
EDWARD
BROWN
Ohio
JAMES
J
BROWN _
Georgia
JAMES
EDWARD
BROWN
Ohio
JAMES
R
BROWN
li
Georgia
JAMES
HARMON
BROWN
Ohio
JAMES
MARK
BROWN
Georgia
JAMES
EDWARD
BROWN
Ohio
JAMES
L
BROWN
JR
Georgia
JAMES
WILLIE
BROWN
Ohio
JAMES
D
BROWN
Georgia
JAMES
F
BROWN
Ohio
JAMES
EDWIN
BROWN
Georgia
JAMES
VINCENT
BROWN
How Trump Stole 2020 97
But look closely at the two-state voters. Kobach
lists James DONALD Brown as the same voter as James
EDWARD Brown. And James Brown Sr. is supposed to
be the same voter as James Brown Jr. Both Senior and
Junior would get purged from the rolls.
And look at this. The entire Jackson Five is on the
list. In fact, it’s the Jackson Five Thousand.
5759
5760
19273
Georgia
MICHAEL
EUGENE
JACKSON
S761
Virginia
MICHAEL
LEBURN
JACKSON
S762
S763
19274
Georgia
MICHAEL
LEONARD
JACKSON
5764
Virginia
MICHAEL
PAGE
JACKSON
5765
5766
19276
Georgia
MICHAEL
JEROME
JACKSON
5767
Virginia
MICHAEL
EUGENE
JACKSON
5768
5769
19277
Georgia
MICHAEL
A
JACKSON
5770
Virginia
MICHAEL
WAYNE
JACKSON
5771
5772
19278
Georgia
MICHAEL
LEE
JACKSON
5773
Virginia
MICHAEL
PERNELL
JACKSON
5774
5775
19283
Georgia
MICHAEL
D
JACKSON
5776
Virginia
MICHAEL
ALAN
JACKSON
5777
5778
19288
Georgia
NICOLE
BERNADETTE
JACKSON
5779
Virginia
nicole
y
Jackson
5780
5781
19294
Georgia
PATRICIA
D
JACKSON
5782
Virginia
PATRICIA
ANN
JACKSON
5783
5784
19306
Georgia
ROBERT
STEVEN
JACKSON
5785
Virginia
ROBERT
HERMAN
JACKSON
5786
5787
19307
Georgia
ROBERT
EDWARD
JACKSON
5788
Virginia
ROBERT
LEE
JACKSON
5789
5790
19309
Georgia
ROBERT
EARL
JACKSON
5791
Virginia
ROBERT
JOHN
JACKSON
5792
5793
19310
Georgia
ROBERT
BERNARD
JACKSON
5794
Virginia
ROBERT
DAVID
JACKSON
5795
57M
19311
Georgia
ROBERT
JACKSON
5797
Virginia
ROBERT
JACKSON
5798
5799
S800
19319
SAMANTHA
COURTNEY
JACKSON
98 How Trump Stole 2020
Then there is the “Mohamed Mohamed” posse.
Because they share the most common name on the
planet, they were able to pull off their electoral crime.
Though, inexplicably, they changed their middle
names. In Columbus, Ohio, alone, there are more than
20 Mohamed Mohameds illegally registering in two
states.
468
21823 Georgia
MOHAMED
AWEYS
MOHAMED
469
Ohio
MOHAMED
RASHID
MOHAMED
470
471
21824 Georgia
MOHAMED
AWEYS
MOHAMED
472
Ohio
MOHAMED
ALI
MOHAMED
473
474
21825 Georgia
MOHAMED
SAID
MOHAMED
475
Ohio
MOHAMED
OSMAN
MOHAMED
476
477
21826 Georgia
MOHAMED
ABDI
MOHAMED
478
Ohio
MOHAMED
0
MOHAMED
According to Kobach.
It would be a joke... except that thousands of these
Mohameds and Michael Jacksons and James Browns
were purged from the voter rolls by Secretary of State
Jon Husted, the Husted of purge-by-postcard fame.
Once again, I brought in Mark Swedlund and his
expert database team. They went through name by
name and discovered that two million of the supposed
How Trump Stole 2020 99
matched voters had either mis-matched middle names
or mis-matched suffixes (Jr./Sr.) or both.
How could this be? All the gushing news reports
about Crosscheck cited Kobach’s statement that the
voters were matched not only by first and last name,
but by middle name, suffix, date of birth and last four
digits of their social security numbers.
But, then, I got my hands on the secret instructions
for Crosscheck’s implementation sent by Kobach to
every voting state official telling them they could
“ignore” mis-matches. Indeed, says Swedlund, almost
every one of the millions on the list was a mismatch.
C&ose actual^ re^steretf in two states were)
simply innocent voters who had re-located but had
(notFet sent a notice to remove fltemselves from their)
old address. What they weren’t were criminal double
voters. None.
But any reporter simply glancing at the list would
know that.
So why didn’t US papers take note? Because they
didn’t ask. Not a single American newspaper asked for
the actual list of alleged double-registered voters. Not
one asked for the names of the hundreds of thousands
of voters named Jackson and Rodriguez and Mohamed
who were purged and lost their right to vote.
Reporters—or should we call them “repeaters?”—did
repeat the press releases almost word for word from GOP
100 How Trump Stole 2020
Secretaries of State that they had located thousands and
thousands of illegal double voters with Crosscheck.
In part, the problem is that if you ask state officials
for the list, they tell you to stick it. My crew called and
wrote to 29 states for their Crosscheck purge lists. My
own first call was to the swing state of North Carolina.
The Elections Board’s PR flunky. Josh Lawson, told me
the lists were “confidential” because these voters were
“subjects of a criminal investigation.”
I asked, “Are you telling me that 192,000 North Car¬
olina voters on the list are criminal suspects?’ Yes... a
great excuse to withhold the list.
While some states conducted their Crosscheck
purge on the down low. North Carolina’s elections
board director, Kim Strach, announced the purges with
hoopla and a frightening revelation, repeated by the
ABC Network affiliate in Raleigh Durham:
The state Board of Elections revealed Wednesday
that more than 35,000 people may have double
voted by casting ballots in North Carolina and
another state during the 2012 election....
765 voters with an exact match of first and
last name, date of birth, and last four digits of
the social security number were registered in
N.C. and another state, and voted in N.C. and the
other state in the 2012 general election.
How Trump Stole 2020 101
35,750 voters with the same first and last
name and date of birth were registered in N.C.
and another state, and voted in both states in the
2012 general election.
Over 35,000 who committed the crime of voting
twice in North Carolina.
But that was not all. In total, over 192,000 voters
were registered in North Carolina and another state
preparing to commit the double voting crime. Luckily,
Strach had begun the process of removing these tens
of thousands of North Carolinians on the hit list she
got from Kobach.
Not one legislator. Democrat nor Republican, not
(one news reporter guestioned these numbers nor)
asked for names of these perps, or the evidence of
double voting. In fact, ABC News warned the crime
wave “could be bigger than the 36,000 cases” Strach
presented.
A Democrat on the legislative committee said Strach
was believable because she is non-partisan. Really?
Strach’s husband was General Counsel to the North
Carolina Republican Party. But, hey. I’m just a skeptical
guy.
Skeptical enough to fly to North Carolina.
Strach doubled down on the drama, hiring a big-
name FBI agent. Chuck Stuber, to arrest these felon
102 How Trump Stole 2020
fraudulent voters. Photos of the square jawed crime-
buster splashed across the front pages of every state
paper.
r dp
ilNCCaQitollliill
A A
FBI agent to investigate ^
fraud for NC elections
board
Tags: elections
Posted May 27.2014
DDDDD
By Matthew Burns
RALEIGH. NX. — A veteran FBI agent will join [Ke .State Board of
Elections next month to assist in voter fraud and campaign finance
investigations, officials said Tuesday.
How Trump Stole 2020 103
I didn’t know why they needed a G-man: voters
give their addresses. I myself called up several of these
alleged criminals... and visited a few.
In a low-income section of Durham, North Carolina,
literally on the wrong side of the railroad tracks from
booming Raleigh, I attempted to speak with two-state
registrant Kevin Antonio Hayes. However, Mr. Hayes
would not speak. He hid in his mother’s kitchen while
she complained loudly that “My no-good son didn’t
vote once !”—^let alone twice.
And she was certain he never used the alias Kevin
Thomas Hayes—with whom he’d been matched by
Kobach and Strach.
Other voters told me they had never been to the other
states where they supposedly registered . . . with dif¬
ferent middle names (and different ages, even genders).
So, it was off to meet Strach and her FBI man... who
hid from me. Instead, I was shunted off to Josh “it’s
confidential” Lawson.
“Your G-Man, Stuber, is going after voter fraud.
How’s the fishing? Have you caught any fraudulent
voters?”
Lawson answered:
We participated in the Kansas Crosscheck and
that yielded a number of individuals that we
wanted to look into further. It’s part of an ongoing
104 How Trump Stole 2020
investigation and we’ve been partnering with
other Crosscheck-participating states to get this
information that we would need if there was any
type of inappropriate behavior we would be able
to send the right evidence onto the DAs and the
DAs could decide whether to prosecute or not.
Huh? It was a yes-or-no question.
The answer is, North Carolina’s million-dollar
manhunt had produced nothing, zero, hubkis. Why?
Lawson said, “These voters were hard to find.” So, I
offered to give him Kevin Hayes’s mom’s address.
His eyes popped open wide. He realized I had some¬
thing he wished I didn’t have: his confidential Crosscheck
list for tens of thousands of North Carolina voters.
(As mentioned, we have our methods—all legal.
Virginia sent us a frantic note that their Crosscheck
blacklist had been given to us “in error” and begged us
to return it. Let me thank my investigator ZD Roberts
for arranging for the “error.” I may give Virginia back
the list. After we publish it.)
North Carolina’s Stuber and Strach, after a year of
hunting, never convicted, never even charged one
double-voter on the Crosscheck list. . . but that was
not reported on ABC TV nor in any newspaper in the
state. There were no illegal voters ... but Crosscheck
eliminated enough Hayeses, Jacksons and Mohameds
How Trump Stole 2020 105
to help flip the state from an Obama win in 2008 to
Trump in 2016.
□ □ □
I traveled to other states hunting down the double
voters. I found Donald Alexander Webster Jr. in Dayton,
Ohio.
The Crosscheck list said Webster was also registered
as Donald Eugene Webster. No “Jr.” Webster looked at
the list and said, “Donald Eugene Webster; that’s not
my middle name.”
I cross-examined the accused criminal:
106 How Trump Stole 2020
Eugene is not your middle name?
No.
Do you ever use the name Eugene?
No.
Do you know that it’s a crime if you vote more
than once?
Of course. It never occurred to me to do that.
What’s two votes going to do when you’ve got to
have thousands, you’ve got to have a bunch of
people doing that!
Well, do you? Are you part of a larger conspiracy?
No, I’m not, sir.
At 70, Donald Webster was retired. He’d worked at
Delco, once the General Motors auto parts plant. He
trained as an engineer, but was hired as a janitor. Why?
“They’d put a big ‘C’ on your application.” What did the
C stand for? “Colored.”
And that’s part of the vote suppression story too.
They can’t crush the hopes of the C workers unless
How Trump Stole 2020 107
they take away their right to do something about it, to
vote.
Delco was re-named Delphi, sold off, shut down
and the plant re-opened in China. Down Dayton’s
dead streets, home after home boarded up, fore¬
closed or just abandoned. Stephen Williams, also on
the Crosscheck list, told me, “This town has had a
heart attack.”
You can’t take away someone’s job, take away their
home and hopes—unless you take away their vote,
their last chance to resist.
Voting suppression is class war by other means. It’s
(economic; race is merely file marker of unAerclass in)
America.
Ohio, that swing state of swing states, grabbed my
attention with numbers buried deep in federal records.
Between 2012 and 2014, the Black population rose
while Black voter registrations declined; and that’s
just plain weird. But then, the Crosscheck list targeted
469,201 in Ohio.
How many voters have fallen victim to Crosscheck?
How many of the 17 million purged in the USA were
Crosschecked? Kobach and friends won’t say. But Vir¬
ginia released the number which we could compare
to the secret list we obtained in error. In all, 339,120
names are listed as potentially registering to vote in
108 How Trump Stole 2020
both Virginia and another state in the 2012 election. A
third of a million suspect voters.
Virginia almost immediately purged 12% of the
voters on their list: 41,637 voters lost their registration
within 12 months, meaning more would follow. And fur¬
thermore, Virginia’s Crosscheck purge was conducted
only after removing 22,944 voters on the ERIC list.
The math is ugly: using Virginia’s low purge rate of
12%, if followed by other states, no less than 1.1 million
voters would lose their registration before the 2016
election.
□ □ □
And not just any voters. Antonio Hayes, Donald Web¬
ster, Jose Garcia, David Kim ... I was speaking to an
awful lot of alleged double voters. Almost all were
notably non-white.
But then, the Kobachs and Trumps already know
the color of the voters who vote twice. Indeed the
trope of the double-voting Black man goes back a cen¬
tury to the hit film of 1915, Birth of a Nation, a paean
to the Ku Klux Klan (the “Nation”). Here, a white actor
in Blackface sneaks a second rolled-up ballot into the
ballot box.
We did a deep dive into the data. Swedlund, nor¬
mally a pretty calm guy, was shaken by the numbers.
How Trump Stole 2020 109
“flabbergasted.” We found that, in the participating
states, Crosscheck identified for the purge...
(—one In seven African-American votersj
—one in eight Hispanic voters, and
—one in eight Asian-American voters.
You could call this Jim Crow trick the “Last name
game.”
And it’s stupidly simple. According to the US Census,
85 of the too most common last names in America
are minority names—Rodriguez, Jones, Chong, Patel,
Jackson, etc. The history of slavery, of the Spanish
110 How Trump Stole 2020
Conquest, of Asian immigration means that most
voters of color share a common name. The only crite¬
rion for getting on the Crosscheck hit list is a match of
first and last name. Kobach and the Secretaries of State
crow that they have identifiers including four-digits
of the social security number ... but they ignore that
data. But it’s a good line to give to US reporters. (As I
said, we’ll get to the issue of lazy-fuckism later.)
One-fourth of all African-Americans share just 43
last names; one-fourth of Asian-Americans share just
41 names; and Hispanics? One-fourth share just 26
(names. You^d need to 1 st 319 last names to capture a)
fourth of white Americans. The result, the list contains
gazillions of Jesse Jacksons but not one double of Kris
Kobach, Jon Husted nor David Koch.
But still, some white upper-income homeowners,
i.e.. Republicans named Smith, could get caught up in
the dragnet. So, for that, there’s another racial weapon:
The Postcard.
Yes, Crosscheck was the original purge-by-postcard
operation. And it is Kobach who came up with those
unreadable, designed-to-be-trashed postcards. Not
all 7 million voters on Crosscheck get the heave-ho.
Kobach instructs his fellow purge’n generals to send
a card to each voter. In some states James Brown also
has to miss an election. (You can see how Crosscheck
in Georgia morphed into use-it-or-lose-it.)
How Trump Stole 2020 111
The postcard trick amplifies the racial bias in Cross¬
check’s last-name algorithm and adds age bias, cutting
the number of young (i.e., Democratic) voters who are
Crosschecked out of their vote.
KING CROSSCHECK EXPLAINS IT ALL
That’s when I decided to have a little talk with the
Crosscheck King himself, Kris Kobach. Though he
turned down Greg Palast of Rolling Stone, he was glad
to offer vanilla ice cream to the local news guy from
Channel 4.
He could have made a clean getaway if he hadn’t had
to halt and stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. But it
wasn’t my hat that made him nervous, it was when I
pulled out the confidential Crosscheck sheets he never
thought I’d get.
Kobach is no rube. The Oxford/Harvard/Yale grad was
very fast on his feet, delivering bullshit at high speed.
I showed him his own Kansas hit list, matching
James Evan Johnson with James P. Johnson, and he
denied that was a list he’d created. He denied that
Virginia had removed voters based on Crosscheck—
though the state records state, “41,637 cancelled by
Crosscheck.” He denied that his office told Crosscheck
states to ignore the social security number and other
mis-matches. I showed him that the clearly illegal
112 How Trump Stole 2020
advice had the Great Seal of the Secretary of State of
Kansas stamped on it... which matched the seal on his
polo shirt.
In all fairness to Kobach, I did locate one voter on
his list who confessed to voting multiple times. And
he had the perfect means to do so. A country music
singer, he lived on a bus and travelled state to state. In
Georgia, Grosscheck said he voted as a woman named
“Willie Mae” (the guy sports long pigtails) and in Mis¬
sissippi and other states under his given name, Willie
H. Nelson.
However, I had some doubts about his confes¬
sion. The 8 o-some-year-old giggled throughout the
interview, and admitted he was “high,” though Willie
added, looking over the crazy Grosscheck list, that I
must be high too, concluding, “It sounds like you got
better shit than I got.”
CHAPTER 15
Voting Gangnam Style—
The Rise of Kim Crow
In November 2012, the Georgia Bureau of Investiga¬
tion, armed and ready for combat, raided an office in
northern Atlanta. They seized computer files and pre¬
pared for mass arrests.
Georgia is filled with violent white supremacist
groups. I stood with a passel of them called The Proud
Boys in a Macon rally for Kemp hosted by Donald
Trump. (I was disguised because I’m not insane.)
The Proud Boys, co-sponsors of the Gharlottesville
mayhem, were founded by Gavin Mclnnis (tag line:
“Hitler was right. Gas the Jews.”).
But the Georgia G-men didn’t do a damn thing about
the Proud Boys. The raid was against a group called
“10,000 Koreans Vote.”
Their crime was asking a question: What happened
to our voter registrations?
113
114 How Trump Stole 2020
□ □ □
A few facts about Americans of the Asian persuasion:
Historically, Asian-Americans are the least voting
racial group in America. Until recently, only one in
three Asian-Americans voted.
And when they did vote, until 2000, they voted
Republican, big time: a huge majority voted for George
Bush Sr. over Bill Clinton in 1992. Then, something
happened. Beginning with Bush Jr.’s election and accel¬
erating through 2018, Asian-Americans began voting
as if they’d turned Black: In 2012,73% of Asian-Ameri¬
cans voted for Barack Obama.
Needproof of the change? Check out Voting Gangnam
Style on YouTube. And at the end of one video, one
Korean student turns into John Lewis. Excellent joke.
But the GOP wasn’t laughing. They knew that if
these citizens were allowed to register and vote at the
level of Caucasian-Americans, Stacey Abrams would
be Governor of Georgia, and Donald Trump would still
be a reality show host.
Why did Asian-Americans switch parties?
Maybe it was the “War on Terror," which looked an
awful lot like a war on Muslims. And then there’s the
Republican war on immigrants, which is new: Ronald
Reagan issued the first “amnesty” to undocumented
migrants.
How Trump Stole 2020 115
And it’s demographics: Asian-American citizens are
a young group, more interested in the right to an edu¬
cation than the right to a gun. They liked Obama. He’s
cool. Trump weirds them out.
Brian Kemp took notice—and he notified the
Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
The key target of the GBI raid was Helen Ho, who
had launched 10,000 Koreans Vote. Standing at about
5-foot-nothing, Helen doesn’t look like much of a
threat to the state, but she definitely was. A threat to
the Good 01 ’ Boy network, a threat to Brian Kemp and
his plan for the governorship, and the Republicans’ last
desperate suck on the pipe of the “Southern Strategy,”
that is, winning the Gonfederacy with race-baiting
campaigns.
But for 10,000 Koreans to vote, Helen needed
10,000 Koreans to register. And she was getting to her
goal, communicating in Korean to a community very
wary of getting involved in politics. In 2014, Helen told
me she was warned that she would become a target,
that the Asian community would be targeted. And, oh
boy, was she right.
The group registered about 4,000 Korean-Ameri-
cans, concentrated in the 6 th Gongressional District,
which the GOP was fighting uphill to hold. Ten thou¬
sand Koreans wouldn’t help them.
Helen grew concerned. The names she’d gathered
116 How Trump Stole 2020
were not being added to Georgia voter rolls. When she
called Kemp's office, she was told there were no such
registrations, the registration forms didn’t exist.
But, Helen responded, she had copies of the forms.
That was a mistake. According to Brian Kemp, it’s
illegal to copy a voter registration form. But, if copying
forms is barred, how can you prove someone tried to
register? You can’t. And that’s the whole point.
(WBien a government acts to prevent voters Erom rel-)
istering, that’s a federal crime. A go-to-jail crime. But
in Georgia, and too many other states, it’s the victims
who face arrest and prison.
Griminal charges hung over Helen and her Korean
voter registration volunteers. Ultimately, the bullshit
charges were dropped—after two years. But the raid
accomplished its real purpose: When I returned to the
10,000 Koreans Vote office in 2017, the door was shut¬
tered, files and computers all gone, registration signs
strewn across an empty office. Helen Ho and 10,000
Koreans Vote were effectively shut down.
CHAPTER 16
Michigan Michigass
Here’s what you know: In 2016, Donald Trump won
Michigan by 10,704 votes. Officially.
Here’s what you don't know: 75,355 ballots were
never counted. That’s official, too. Just “spoilage,” that
is, ballots that were, for some technical reason, untal¬
lied.
But not just anyone’s vote “spoiled.” Most of these
yan ished votes wer e cas t Ih^etroit — where ornty on e"
(in ten city residents are wMfei) Motown. Not exactly
Trump-viile.
Exit polls showed Clinton won Michigan. And now
the pollsters were apologizing for their “mistake.”
I didn’t buy it. If you counted those ballots in the
dumpsters in Detroit, Clinton would have won. And
if this pattern held in the other two states’ exit polls
that reported she won, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania,
Clinton should have won the Electoral College.
117
118 How Trump Stole 2020
I’m not sure what’s wrong with me. The election
was over. Hillary and hubby had moved on to lucra¬
tive book contracts, six-figure speaking gigs and their
“charity.” Trump was triumphant and the country, too,
had moved on.
But it bothered me, the 75,355 ballots no one
counted in Michigan.
The usual outlets for my investigations, like Rolling
Stone, weren’t bothered either. They had “moved on”
too. So I borrowed a few more bucks from my pension
plan, begged my readers for some spare change, and
bought a ticket for Detroit.
To do this investigation, I needed a break. And I got
it: a surprise call from Jill Stein. The Green Party Pres¬
idential candidate. She offered me a scoop. (Stein was)
ready to raise $9 million for re-counts in Wisconsin,
Pennsylvania and Michigan to prove that Trump lost—
that is, if you counted all the votes in those states. She
could literally overturn Trump’s election.
I broke the story, she raised the $9 million in days,
and the recount began.
But “recount” is the wrong word. In Michigan, the
funds were meant for counting those 75,355 ballots
that were never counted in the first place.
In Michigan, you vote on paper ballots—which you
shove into a scanner to get counted. But a funny thing
happened in Detroit: 87 machines broke down, they
How Trump Stole 2020 119
could not read the ballots. Once in Detroit, I met with
information specialist Carlos Garcia. He told me his
precinct’s scanner was already busted when he arrived
at the opening of voting at 7 a.m. It was finally fixed
at 930 a.m. He stayed and saw that those ballots cast
during the morning vote rush, while the machine was
broken, were never run through the scanner, never
recorded.
That non-count was repeated throughout the city. It
was easy to catch... because the number of ballots in
the broken machines did not match the total of ballots
these machines said it counted. But —ready for this ?—
the Republican Attorney General ruled that if the
number of physical ballots did not match the scanner
(count, these precincts couM not be re-counteO Get
that? The precincts with the missing count—the ones
you’d want to review—were barred from the re-count.
So whose votes didn’t count? The see-no-evil
recount rule meant that 59 % of Detroit's precincts
could not be reviewed . . . specifically the ones with
broken machines and missing ballot counts. Detroit:
Can you guess the color of the un-counted voters?
OCCUPIED TERRITORIES
One f’d-up machine in a precinct is bad luck. No
big deal. But 87 broken machines, 87 machines not
120 How Trump Stole 2020
counting thousands of ballots, is a very big deal, an
electoral crime wave. A stolen election.
And they knew it. Republican state officials knew
before Election Day that Detroit’s scanning machines
were already busted, dysfunctional or likely not to sur¬
vive the day. Well before November 2016, the Detroit
City Clerk Janice Winfrey pleaded to fund her budget
to replace the bad ballot scanners. But there was a
problem: Detroit was bankrupt—and every penny
spent had to be approved by “managers,” overlords
appointed by the Republican Governor Rick Snyder.
In 2016, Detroit was an Occupied Territory, as was
Flint, Michigan. In Flint, the State-appointed managers
cut the budget for the water system—and poisoned
Flint’s kids with lead. The stories of Detroit scanners
and the Flint water supply go together. If you’re going
to poison someone’s children, you’d better take away
their right to vote against the poisoning.
The Michigan ballot count was Jim Crow’d by bad
scanners, and Trump was triumphant. But Jill Stein
was going to spoil the celebration. Her recount would
pay for an extraordinary machine that could read those
uncounted ballots: the human eyeball.
But something funny was happening at the govern¬
ment re-count centers.
How Trump Stole 2020 121
WHISTLEBLOWER
Late November in Michigan sucks. From a Hampton
Inn on a truck route north of the city, it was a long
slog through dirty slush and wet snow to meet a whis¬
tleblower at a roadhouse bar, and a couple stiff drinks
to get her to loosen up, to talk without a stutter or fear
on camera. “Sue” told me she faced retribution in her
white suburb, even from in-laws who were not happy
about her blowing the whistle.
Sue is a computer programmer who thought it would
be interesting, and just a good thing to do, to volunteer
for the recount operation at the county building. She
didn’t even have a strong preference in the election.
What she experienced disturbed her enormously:
We saw a lot of ballots that weren’t originally
counted because those don’t scan into the
machine.
Ballot reviewers were adding previously
uncounted ballots to the Clinton column; and
Trump operatives were challenging every
Clinton vote and every decision for Clinton. They
are creating chaos and slowing up the process,
and making up nonsense rules to disqualify bal¬
lots. At the same time, the Democratic Party had
brought in “observers” [who] refused to take part
122 How Trump Stole 2020
in the ballot count nor even bother to get in the
way of the GOP obstructers.
Despite all the obstruction, it was clear that if the
count went ahead unimpeded, Trump would lose
Michigan. So Trump did the only thing he could do:
stop the count.
Trump’s lawyers sued in state court in Lansing, the
capital. Trump’s consiglieri had a killer argument: No
(matter how many times ¥ou count the votes in Bftch-)
igan, Jill Stein’s Green Party would not win. Under
the law, this meant that Stein had no “standing” for a
recount. Only Hillary Clinton could call for a tally of
those ballots.
Luckily, Clinton's lawyers were in the courtroom.
Unluckily, when the judge asked them for Secretary
Clinton’s agreement for the ballot count, her lawyers
said, we are just “here to observe."
Hillary’s campaign motto: Just here to observe.
□ □ □
So Stein’s challenge was finished. But I wasn’t. How
did it get so close in Michigan—Michigan! home of the
United Auto Workers Union!—that Trump could win
with a few broken scanners?
So I took off on a snow-bound ride to the Lansing
How Trump Stole 2020 123
office of the Attorney General—who had me blocked
trying to get onto his office elevator. Then it was off to
the Secretary of State, the Republican official who was
in charge of the election, and crucially, in charge of the
voter rolls, that is, the list of citizens who get to vote.
America is one of the only nations on the planet,
excluding Russia and Red China, where party officials
are in charge of elections. Back in 2000, Katherine
Harris, the Secretary of State that made Bush pres¬
ident, was also chairwoman of the Bush election
campaign. In 2004, Bush was re-elected by a thumb on
the electoral scale placed by the Secretary of State of
Ohio, another Bush campaign chairman.
So, I slogged over to the office of the Katherine Harris
of Michigan, the GOP Secretary of State Ruth Johnson.
Her flak-catcher, her official media spokesman, the
heavy-jowled Fred Woodhams, first tried to explain
the uncounted 75,355 ballots as Detroit residents who
simply didn’t want to vote for President. African-Amer¬
icans waited in line ... not to vote?
I was also curious about the mass erasure of Black,
Hispanic and Muslim voters from the rolls before the
election. (NB: Michigan has the highest concentration
of Arab-Americans in the US.)
“Michigan,” he explained, “participates in the
Interstate Grosscheck.” That’s an understatement.
Michigan obtained a list of 499,022 Michiganders
124 How Trump Stole 2020
to purge, a smidge less than half a million “potential
double voters.” None were arrested for this crime, but
tens of thousands lost their vote.
He was surprised but cool when I showed him the
secret Michigan purge list. The list was sent to him by
Kris Kobach based on the list sent to Kobach by Brian
Kemp. The sotto voce Georgia-Kansas-Michigan name
game had, he said, legitimate, serious purpose. He said.
This is to eliminate fraud.
I asked if his office really believed that “Michael
Bernard Brown is supposed to be the same voter as
Michael Anthony Brown?
The names “Brown,” “Mohamed” and “Rodri¬
guez”—did his office notice the racial hue of the list?
“I’ve known a lot of white Browns!” he said. Oh, OK
then!
How many tens of thousands of Browns and Garcias
were removed? He said, inscrutably, “We’ve been very
aggressive...”
I congratulated him, saying: “I can see the aggression.”
Entr’acte
Stacey Abrams and Brian Kemp: 1-1/2 Interviews
In our six years of investigating attacks on the right
to vote in Georgia under Secretary of State Brian
Kemp, now Governor Kemp, we had many talks with
the New Georgia Project and its founder, the “Hon.”
Stacey Abrams. “Honorable” because, while she
identified herself first as a voting rights advocate,
“Founder of the New Georgia Project,” her day job
was Minority Leader, the Democrats’ chief in the
State Legislature.
This interview is quite revealing, coming well before
she or Kemp knew they’d be facing off for the Gover¬
norship, so there was no election spin. (I tried to meet
with Kemp many times but he ducked—until I found
him in Newnan, Georgia, under a pig. That interview—
unfortunately shortened when Kemp’s cops busted
me—is also attached here.)
In speaking to Abrams, three things struck me: First,
she was hoping to make voting rights a non-partisan
issue. Good luck.
Second, she knows her stuff. When I mentioned
Kansas, she immediately launched into Kris Kobach,
the real force behind the GOP purge-fest.
Finally, I thought I had cracked the purge puzzle
125
of Kemp’s and Kobach’s fake “double voters” and
“movers” list. Abrams, with a quick glance at the list,
figured out something I had missed: that Kemp purged
some voters from the rolls for moving into Georgia.
Abrams is a bit legalistic, a cautious Harvard lawyer.
Nevertheless, she displayed a commitment to fighting
vote trickery rare even in Democratic politicians,
who’d just rather... not talk about it.
My investigator, Zach D. Roberts, had wheedled
the early purge lists from Kemp’s flunky, David Dove.
These were the “Crosscheck” lists created by Kobach
to identify Georgians who’d left the state and could
potentially vote twice, once in each state. (Our work
later proved none of those listed voted twice—in fact,
almost none had moved.)
It was Kobach, remember, who introduced the
purge-by-postcard operation to Kemp.
I met with Abrams at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist
Church where both Martin Luther King Sr. and King Jr.
had preached. My first question: What is your name,
for the record...
STACEY ABRAMS
Stacey Abrams. I'm the founder of the New Georgia
Project And [Georgia State] House Minority Leader.
126
It’s fair to pass on a warning about Abrams. On the
Sunday before the Abrams-Kemp showdown, I joined
a couple thousand Oath Keepers, InfoWars acolytes,
Q-Anon fanatics. Proud Boys flashing White Power
hand signals and just a whole bunch of good ol’ boys
at a rally in Macon, Georgia, where President Trump
warned us that Abrams “is one of the most extreme
far-left politicians in the entire country—^you know
that! You put Stacey in there, you’re going to have
Georgia turn into Venezuela. I don’t think the people
of Georgia like that.’’*
PALAST. QUESTION
This is something given to us by your Secretary of State.
This is one sheet out of tens of thousands of sheets,
inciuding 510,000 Georgians who are iisted under the
heading "Potentiai Doubie Voters'—Georgians who
moved out of state. Repubiican officiais have begun a
process of removing voters who they ciaim may have
voted in two states.
* Because my interview with Secretary Kemp made local news, I decided it
prudent to wear a trucker cap and no visible news credentials. Only when Air
Force One departed and the site was nearly empty did I get a greeting of recog¬
nition, “There's that terrible man!”
127
STACEY ABRAMS
Are they attempting to do that for this eiection?
QUESTION
They've aiready begun it Some peopie have aiready
been removed.
STACEY ABRAMS
Weii, state iaw requires that purgings stop 90 days
before an eiection. So, if this is ongoing—that's a vio-
iation of state iaw.
QUESTION
Secretary Kemp won't meet with us. We do know this,
we are toid that voters on the iist wiii be sent a ietter,
a iittie postcard, which I'ii send to you—asking them
to confirm their registration address. And if you don't
respond, you can be taken off the iist or you can be
iisted as inactive, and then you can—if you miss one
eiection, you're off the iist
This is a very, very typicai iist Here we have—oh, iet
me just pick one out: Vincent Hardy Wiiiiams, voted in
Georgia. Vincent H. Wiiiiams voted in Virginia. So, they
said that that's the same guy.
STACEY ABRAMS
And how do they know that that's the same person?
QUESTION
Because their iast name matches, their first name
matches, and their birthday matches.
[Note: At the time, I thought they matched birthdates
at least. They didn’t.]
129
STACEY ABRAMS
I will point out two deeply concerning parts to this.
The Secretary of State has recently claimed that
[Kemp] cannot find the 40,000 new applicants we are
attempting to have put on the rolls, because it only has
first name, last name, city, county and birth date. And if
they believe that that information is sufficient to remove
people from the rolls. I'm deeply concerned that [Kemp
ruled] it is not sufficient to odd people to the rolls.
Secondly, this information does not indicate the
year of the election [the voter last voted in]. Georgia
has one of the highest levels of immigration in the
country. Between 2000 and 2010, we had more
[than] 1.5 million new Georgians move to the state,
80% of whom, roughly between 70% and 80% were
people of color. My deep concern just based on this
superficial information is that this does not indicate
which elections they voted in.
Did they vote [in another state's] municipal election,
and at the beginning of the year move, re-register,
and then vote in—very legally—in [a Georgia] elec¬
tion? And so, my deep concern is that this is one more
attempt to purge voters unlawfully and without ade¬
quate information. As opposed to what a Secretary
of State should be committed to, which is enfran¬
chising voters to the best of his ability.
130
QUESTION
We know that there are 86,000 John Jacksons in the
United States. Is it [a] good way to match, whether
someone's voted twice? This is 28 states, so, if
someone named Vincent Wiiiiams voted in any of 28
states, they end up on this iist
STACEY ABRAMS
I think it begs the question of two things. One, what is
the aigorithm that's being used to determine whether
or not this is the same person? What's the timing of
those eiections? But if what you're using is a surname
match, that is a deepiy unreiiabie question, especiaiiy
in the South, where you wiii find peopie with these
same names, with very common names.
But more than that the instinct shouid not be to
purge voters. I think that's the piace where we shouid be
the most concerned. Why wouid a Secretary of State
be spending this energy trying to remove iawfui voters,
instead of trying to add new voters to the roiis? It is the
roie of the Secretary of State to enfranchise voters.
And I'm deeply disturbed that [Kemp] would use such
facile information to attempt to [cfeenf ranchise] voters.
Can you tell me who the architect of this program
is?
131
QUESTION
This was created by the Republican Secretary of State
of Kansas. In fact it's called Kansas Interstate Cross¬
check, and the 28 states [in it]—almost all of them are
Republican controlled. Do you believe that this is some
type of a partisan attempt to remove voters?
STACEY ABRAMS
I believe that Kris Kobach has demonstrated a very
aggressive animus towards people of color in his
immigration stance, and in his work on voter registra¬
tion. He tries to cloak it under the question of the rule
of law. But he seems to cherry-pick the laws he wishes
to—to participate in, and evaluate and uphold.
But more than that I'm deeply concerned at our
Secretary of State, that someone who works for the
people of Georgia, has decided to spend his time and
energy trying to purge voters, as opposed to making
certain that someone named Vincent Williams
couldn't possibly live in two different states.
Or more importantly, could've lived in one state,
a couple of states over, and moved to the state of
Georgia, and decided to be an active citizen when
he re-registered his driver's license, and became an
automatic voter in the state of Georgia.
132
QUESTION
Now their—as you say, their aigorithm—is based on
names. So it's a probiem in the South. Is this going to
bias the iist of who's targeted for a purge?
STACEY ABRAMS
I think that it further emphasizes the need for groups
iike the New Georgia Program. Our goai is to enfran¬
chise the 800,000 unregistered African-American,
Latino, and Asian voters in the state of Georgia. If
we need to add to it the 500,000 that are being tar¬
geted by the Secretary of State, then that is what
we wiii do. Because our goai is to fuiiy engage our
citizens, not to cherry-pick the citizens we iike.
QUESTION
Well, the Asian-American legal organizations are very
concerned that names like Park, Kim and Lee, that—
that this algorithm is biased against minority voters.
STACEY ABRAMS
Absolutely. It's biased, I think, both in form and intent
But more concerning to me is the fact that this is
133
being done stealthily. That there has not been an
active conversation. I sit as the Minority Leader of the
House of Representatives, this information has never
been presented to the House of Representatives.
We are unaware, at least certainly on my side of
the aisle, and as someone who attended almost every
single day of the session this year, unless I was excused,
we have never had this information presented to us.
So, the fact that our Secretary of State is under¬
taking to purge 500,000 voters from the State of
Georgia should be deeply concerning to every Geor¬
gian making a decision this year.
QUESTION
And so, you've never seen these lists—
STACEY ABRAMS
Never.
QUESTION
From your own state office?
134
STACEY ABRAMS
Absolutely not
QUESTION
You were not told by your Secretary of State—
STACEY ABRAMS
I have no awareness of It
QUESTION
—Republican officials never gave any Information on
this?
STACEY ABRAMS
This Is what disturbs me most I've done my best as
Minority Leader to cultivate a relationship with
our constitutional officers, because the citizens of
Georgia don't care whether I'm a Democrat or a
Republican. They don't care whether the Secretary of
State Is a Democrat or a Republican. They care that
the work that they've hired us to do gets done. And
so, I've tried to make It my point as leader, to be as
135
engaged as much as possible to work cooperatively
with the Secretary of State.
But to learn that we are stealthily, and I think very
sadly, seeking to disenfranchise voters, to set up a
scheme that is—I think will be proven out to be prob¬
lematic, given that we can't manage to register the
40,000 applications we have. The fact that we are
now seeking to remove 500,000 voters. That should
be a red flag to every voter this year. Is that the
direction we want the state to take and is that the
work that we want our tax dollars to be used for?
QUESTION
When questioned, they said, "Well, we have Social Secu¬
rity numbers for these to match these voters." But within
their files was the note that even when Social Securities
are mismatched or missing, that the voter still ends up
on the list Do you think that this is reasonable?
STACEY ABRAMS
I think that is deeply flawed and possibly unlawful.
A Social Security match is something that Georgia
requires. The Justice Department has allowed proof
of citizenship, but proof of citizenship can come
through various forms.
136
My deep concern is that the flaws within the
Georgia system, the glitches that we have experienced
with the very basic responsibilities of the Secretary of
State's office, to expand that for the purposes of dis¬
enfranchising voters without guaranteeing that you
know what you're doing. And as of now, knowledge
that the Secretary of State's office is effective at its
job is a bit I think, uncertain. I find that to be deeply
problematic and worthy of investigation.
QUESTION
Over 100,000 names on the list have a mismatch of
middle names. So, it's like, John Robert Williams and
John Henry Williams are listed as the same suspect
double voter. Do you think that's reasonable?
STACEY ABRAMS
I think it's completely unreasonable, and I certainly
intend as a member of the House of Representatives
to investigate and to request information from the
Secretary of State about this program, about the
nature of the program, about the origin of it, about
the resources being used to implement it and about
whether or not we are systematically attempting to
disenfranchise half a million of our Georgia voters.
137
QUESTION
Well, It Is obviously highly weighted to minorities
because of the common name system that they're
using. Do you find this problematic?
STACEY ABRAMS
I find any attempt to use ethnicity and race as a
reason to disenfranchise voters to be anathema to
and Indeed repugnant to who we are as Americans.
QUESTION
They also claim that there's nothing to fear, because
each of these voters are gonna get a postcard saying,
"Please confirm your name, address and registration."
STACEY ABRAMS
Given that we have 40,000 voters who have yet to
get the card saying that you're registered, my fear Is
that the efficacy of the Secretary of State's office
may not be equal to the task he's undertaking.
138
QUESTION
You don't believe that people should be required to
re-register and reclaim that they are citizens?
STACEY ABRAMS
I believe that if a citizen in the state of Georgia is
unlawfully—if there is anyone in the state of Georgia
who is not lawfully engaged in the act of voting, they
certainly should not be allowed to vote. However, var¬
ious attempts to disprove the legitimacy of a voter
should be considered deeply repugnant
More importantly, the Secretary of State should
be focusing his energies on enfranchising voters and
assisting voters. I am deeply concerned that his facile
approach to matching ignores time, ignores date,
ignores the—the ability to migrate across state lines,
and calls into question our larger issue in the United
States [which] is how we decide who gets to vote and
where.
QUESTION
Do you think that this is just a crude attempt at sup¬
pressing the minority vote?
139
STACEY ABRAMS
I don't want to dismiss Mr. Kobach suff icientiy. I wouidn't
caii it crude. I caii it deepiy probiematic—repuisive. I
don't know the compiexity of his aigorithm, so I won't
caii it crude. But I certainiy think it's a probiem.
QUESTION
As I mentioned, they've said that when there is no
Sociai Security number or even a mismatch, that you
stiii remain on the iist Do you think that's—
STACEY ABRAMS
If the State of Georgia has determined that it wiii
purge voters based on spurious information, based on
a fiawed aigorithm, and based on fiawed iogic, then
we shouid as citizens in Georgia demand an answer
immediateiy, and I intend to take that up.
I wiii take it up with Mr. Kemp, but aiso with the
body that I represent which is the House of Represen¬
tatives. It is our purview to set the iaws of the State
of Georgia. And if we are using our iaws to disenfran¬
chise our citizens, we shouid take action.
And I wiii caii upon my Democrat Repubiican, and
Independent colleagues to join me in that effort
140
KEMP Q & A?
As a journalist, I always try to get the answer from
the horse’s mouth—or, if necessary, its other end.
Kemp had been ducking my polite, official requests for
Rolling Stone, A1 Jazeera and Salon for five years.
Once again, I flew down to Atlanta. I can’t say it
was that difficult to track down a guy tooling around
in a big bus with four-foot letters on the side that read
“KEMP.” I jumped ahead of his campaign cruiser to a
planned stop in Newnan, infamous as the site, many
years before, of a Klan lynching.
Kemp pulled up right under a sign with a smiling
pig. In the Sprayberry’s Barbecue parking lot, the
bus tooted its horn, and Kemp walked out in his new
hayseed farmer outfit, blue suit hidden away. He glad¬
handed the smallish crowd thickened by local GOP
functionaries hoping he’ll remember them for that
job as Director of Hog Inspections in a Kemp Admin¬
istration.
BRIAN KEMP
Hey, Clem, long time ...
141
QUESTION
Mr. Kemp, are you removing Black voters from the
voter just so you can win this election?
BRIAN KEMP
Good to see you, Bubba ...
QUESTION
Sir, why do we have to sue you to get the list of voters
you've purged?
Oh, it's you!
BRIAN KEMP
KEMP BODY GUARD
[Blocks reporter ] Please do not touch him.
QUESTION
I'm not touching him! Mr. Kemp, are you removing
Black voters just to win this election?
BODY GUARD
[Arm across reporter's chest] There are children here!
WOMAN IN AMERICAN FLAG SHIRT
[Blocking reporter ] Ah can't believe this!
BRIAN KEMP
[To woman.] Ask my friend, Marty.
QUESTION
[To Sec. Kemp] Sir, why arent you answering my question?
143
BRIAN KEMP
[To white family] Good to see you!
QUESTION
Mr. Kemp, why aren't you answering my questions?
BRIAN KEMP
[Turns his back other way]
QUESTION
Mr. Kemp, excuse me ... [To person pulling reporter
back ] Let go of me now, sir! [To Kemp ] Sir, why do we
have to sue you to get the names of voters you've
removed?
And so on until the local constabulary seized me;
but just a gentle and quick catch and release.
□ □ □
I will get the answers. I have sued in federal court to
get all the lists and info that passed between Kemp and
Kobach.
144
Kemp continues to deny that he purged any voters at
all (!) from the Crosscheck list. Who am I to disagree?
But suspiciously, our experts identified 106,000 from
the Crosscheck list whom Kemp had indeed purged.
The court ruled in my favor in Palast v. Kemp. This
federal oi^er not onlf ^ves me a crdwte ar t o open)
Kemp’s files on Crosscheck, I can now dig into the icky
little threesome between Kemp, Kobach and the Sec¬
retary of State of Michigan whose use of the Kemp/
Kobach Crosscheck list guaranteed Trump his 10,700
(vote "victoHT in tEat state In 2016I
Crucially, the Court ruling in Palast v. Kemp, via
our attorney Jeanne Mirer’s inspired reading of the
National Voter Registration Act, hands every reporter
in America a new tool to dig into government vote sup¬
pression files. Will they?
145
CHAPTER 17
Wisconsin Eats its Young
David Goodman’s brother Andrew was murdered
while attempting to register African-American voters.
Andrew was just 20, his brother David three years
younger.
Andrew was lynched in June 1964, along with
Michael Schwerner and James Chaney, by the towns¬
folk of Philadelphia, Mississippi. There were 18 in the
killing party—and it was indeed a party, organized
by the Exalted Grand Cyclops of the Meridian White
Knights, the local Ku Klux Klan affiliate, joined by the
police chief and local luminaries.
Goodman had joined Schwerner and Chaney to visit
the Mt. Zion Baptist Church. Or what was left of it. The
church was burnt down right after locals found out
Schwerner and Chaney had offered to help the Black
congregants register to vote.
The lynch mob set an ambush, rightly assuming the
147
148 How Trump Stole 2020
three college students, two New York Jews and a local
Black man—not a popular combination in Mississippi
then or now—would return to the burnt church.
After they beat Chaney, they shot him and his two
friends, then covered them with mud. Andrew was
buried still alive. Their bodies were not discovered
for two months. Only one killer was arrested and con¬
victed—42 years later.
The killings were meant to be a lesson.
In some places, the Klan made its point by hanging
effigies by the neck from bridges.
They did not always use effigies. Up through 1968,
the Klan and other White Citizens Councils, as they
called themselves, lynched 3,446 Black men.
But the killers made a mistake. David Goodman, an
engineering student who had once ignored politics,
has dedicated the half century of his life since the mur¬
ders to registering Black voters on a scale his brother
could only dream of. The Andrew Goodman Founda¬
tion operates in Jim Grow states ... including Michigan
and Wisconsin.
The Foundation also acts to protect that other group
targeted by voting apartheid: college students.
□ □ □
Trump’s Wisconsin win was a shock to the Demo-
How Trump Stole 2020 149
cratic Party—but then, the Democratic Party is always
shocked—^because Wisconsin was supposed to be
a safe state for Clinton. Her husband had won Wis¬
consin twice. In fact, Democrats had crushed it seven
elections in a row, helped by the massive vote from the
famously progressive, activist University of Wisconsin
student population.
But then, on Election Day 2016, a giant hunk of the
student vote simply ... vanished. And the Milwaukee
Black vote also plummeted.
And so. Trump is President.
The first thing I noticed was that, while the rest
of the nation had massive voter turnout in 2016, in
this down-to-the-wire state, voting fell off a cliff. In
Black-majority Milwaukee, turnout plummeted from
66 % to 56% of the voting age population. That’s
strange.
And Wisconsin’s student vote evaporated. Nation¬
wide, only two states recorded a drop in student voting.
Wisconsin’s drop was breathtaking. In-precinct votin^ i
by students declined by a third, from 67% to 49 %•
It had, to Goodman, the smell of Mississippi burning.
They didn’t need to drag the local lakes to find the
missing students and Black voters. They were disap¬
peared in plain sight by the Republican legislature
under laws crafted by Wisconsin’s radical-right Gov¬
ernor, Scott Walker.
150 How Trump Stole 2020
One new law required a government photo ID to
vote. But the photo ID issued by the state to its 182,000
University of Wisconsin students did not qualify them
for voting nor for registration.
How brilliant is that? Gun permits could be used to
vote; but not student ID. Carry a weapon, good. Carry
a.hook, forget it.
A Wisconsin driver’s license would do. But not
everyone has a license. Who doesn’t drive? Students in
Madison and low-income urban voters, i.e., the Black
population of Milwaukee.
What was particularly devastating was that the
law was ordered into effect by a court only two weeks
before the 2016 election. Even those who knew of the
change had little time to correct their lack of paper¬
work, even if they could.
Elections Commissioner Ann Jacobs suggests
the University can simply issue ID that allows stu¬
dents to vote . . . but, she noted, just before he lost
re-election. Republican Gov. Walker appointed the
University Regents—who would not correct the IDs to
mint another 100,000 Democrats.
In 2016, a student, if they found out about the last-
minute ID requirement, could hunt down a university
center that would issue a special voting ID. However,
that would not have been good enough to vote. The
Walker law requires that the special student ID
How Trump Stole 2020 151
must be presented with proof of current enroll¬
ment like a tuition fee receipt or letter verifying
enrollment.
Got that?
In 2016, most students voted by mail, thinking this
was a way around the ID law. But ballots not mailed
with an ID and proof of school enrollment would be
cancelled and dumped—and the voter wouldn’t know
it.
University of Wisconsin professors Michael DeCre-
cenzo and Kenneth Mayer wanted to find out about the
mysterious massive drop in 2016 turnout. They con¬
ducted an extraordinary survey, contacting thousands
of non-voters directly. They asked each registrant why
they did not, or could not, vote.
They discovered that 28,000 citizens in just two
cities, Milwaukee and Madison, were blocked by the
ID requirement. (This 28,000 excludes the majority of
voters without proper ID who did not vote for other
reasons, such as long lines—or who just didn’t give a
damn about voting.)
Some folks did in fact have the ID required, but the
law is so complex and little-explained that thousands
thought they did not have acceptable ID. One in 11 Black
voters did not have the right ID, but more than twice that
many thought they didn’t, so did not show up at the polls.
152 How Trump Stole 2020
Take a look at this chart from the study. The ID
law was three times as likely to block or deter Afri¬
can-Americans as whites.
It gets worse. The study measured a privileged
group: those who had already registered before the
ID law went into place, before the law’s jaws snapped
closed in 2016. Beginning in 2016, you could not reg¬
ister without the special ID—another bite out of the
youth vote bloc. The National Study for Learning,
Voting and Engagement found that the eligible student
vote in Madison dropped from 45 % in 2012 to just 37 %
in the Clinton-Trump race.
I know: this is an awful lot of detail, a lot of num¬
bers. But that’s how it’s done. It’s not about some kid in
Moscow fiddling with vote machine software.
The Black vote in Wisconsin fell by a mind-blowing
24.5% between 2012 and 2016 when the ID law hit. The
loss of Black and student votes due to the ID law cost
at minimum 61,274 votes, almost three times Trump’s
plurality. And that estimate of the loss is low. I’ve left
out the Hispanic voters who are growing near to the
size of the Black population. Any way you calculate it,
the show-me-your-papers ID tactic won Wisconsin,
not the voters.
According to The Survey of the Performance of
American Elections (SPAE), poll workers nationwide
demand that first-time voters who are Black produce
p
? 5
to 7
J}
W
s
Figure 2 ; Estcinated [ 9 «rceatage olT White sici'S) Elack coiiivotixig registr£Cls a£]eeti»ii) by HD law
154 How Trump Stole 2020
ID 64% of the time, more than twice as often as for
first-time white voters . . . and ten times more often
than for white returning voters.
JIM CROWING STUDENTS FROM WIS¬
CONSIN TO FLORIDA TO CAROLINA
That was 2016. But this book is about the theft of 2020.
Wisconsin Democrats now have the Governor’s
mansion, but the voting laws are kept medieval by a
rabidly partisan Republican legislature.
In 2020, the Goodman Foundation sued the state
for violating the 26th Amendment. You know the 26th
Amendment? I had to Google it. It’s the one we won
during the War in Vietnam. The Amendment lowered
the national voting age to 18. It was argued that if you
can get drafted for Vietnam at 18, you should have
the right to vote at 18. (Though the late Dick Gregory
noted, “If they can send you to Vietnam at 18, you need
to vote at 16.”)
The Wisconsin ID law is so clearly harmful to the
i8-to-2i vote, Goodman’s suit argues, it violates the
26th Amendment.
Goodman’s lawsuit could prevent the theft of Wis¬
consin in 2020. It’s an argument Goodman used with
some success in Florida. There, Republican officials
allowed the placement of early voting stations in
How Trump Stole 2020 155
country clubs, gun ranges, evangelical church build¬
ings, massage parlors, wherever ... but not on college
campuses —by edict of the GOP successor to Secretary
of State Katherine Harris.
Goodman’s lawyers helped win a court order per¬
mitting voting stations on college campuses. Hooray.
Well, partial hooray. Permission to have a voting sta¬
tion is not a requirement.
It is left to each of Florida’s 67 counties’ discretion
to decide if they want students to have a reasonable
chance of voting. Most counties are controlled by
Republicans and— surprise !—^not one agreed to allow
campus voting. The result: Only 12 colleges in Florida
have been allowed early voting stations.
This was particularly brutal for the students at
Miami-Dade GoIIege (MDG), with over 100,000 stu¬
dents, a city by itself—without one early polling
station. And the Gounty Registrar, a Republican, cer¬
tainly knew that MDG had the largest Hispanic student
population of any school in America, and the third-
largest Black student population.
But, in 2018, an Andrew Goodman scholar,
20-year-oId Rebecca Diaz, organized MDG students to
march on the GOP Registrar and forced the county to
open a voting station.
Gan the action of this one voter change the outcome
of the 2020 election? Yes. In fact, that’s the only way
156 How Trump Stole 2020
it will happen—one activist at a time. (Look, I know
you’re too busy. So am I. Let’s just hope there are more
Rebecca Diaz’s out there, and a few thousand more
David Goodmans.)
Is there work to do? Yes, even in Miami, where the
biggest single campus, Florida International Univer¬
sity, with an 89% non-white student population, is still
without an early voting station.
□ □ □
North Carolina is another battleground state. Rather
than battle in a war of ideas, the Republican legislature
in 2013 banned voting on college campuses. And the
law added a nice little touch. Until its passage. North
Carolina’s high school students were handed a voter
registration form at their graduation ceremonies along
with their diplomas.
Then the Republican not only took away graduates’
registration forms, even the act of attempting to reg¬
ister a student on a high school campus was made a
crime.
No smoking dope, no registering voters. God Bless
America.
CHAPTER 18
Turdblossom Freaks Out
Turdblossom was freaking out. A full stuttering tan¬
trum-fit on Fox TV.
You know Turdblossom. That’s the name George
W. Bush gave his Senior Counselor, Karl Rove. Turd¬
blossom Rove is that pudgy guy you see all the time on
Fox, with the little soft hands and wet lips. He was also
known as “Bush’s Brain.”
It was close to midnight at the end of Election Day
2012, and Fox News had just called Ohio—the swing
state of swing states—for Obama. Obama, said Fox,
had been re-elected President.
And Rove was going berserk, refusing to accept
Obama’s Ohio win. The Fox hosts, though deep Repub¬
lican red, could not understand why Turdblossom
would not just give up.
But Rove knew what they didn’t: that Obama’s reelection
could be reversed by one last, quite brilliant, ballot game.
157
158 How Trump Stole 2020
Rove tried to explain:
Here’s the thing about Ohio. A third of the vote
in Ohio is cast early. That’s won overwhelmingly
by the Democrats. It’s counted first and then you
count the Election Day.
What was he babbling about? This: About 70% of
Black voters in Ohio had cast their ballots on early
voting days. But why would that matter? A ballot’s a
ballot, right?
Not in Ohio, it ain’t.
Rove knew that these hundreds of thousands of
Black early voters were not given regular ballots.
Instead, they were all given ballots that could be dis¬
qualified. For the first time in Ohio history, just days
before the election, the Republican Secretary of State
had secretly ordered a ballot switch for early—i.e..
Black—voters.
But our chief investigator, Leni Badpenny, had
already gotten the tip, four days earlier. The tip-off was
important enough for her to slog across Manhattan
during a power black-out to find a signal to relay the
info to me. (Our Long Island office had been washed
away by Storm Sandy and our files in New York were
floating in two feet of water.)
An Ohio voter had sent her a message that early
How Trump Stole 2020 159
voters were not allowed to vote on regular ballots or
on voting machines. Instead, they were handed an
absentee mail-in ballot.
This was a Big Deal. But to make sure this was not a
BS tip, I immediately called Professor Fitrakis, dean of
voting rights experts in Ohio. He said, “That would be
really, really bad” if they handed out absentee ballots.
But, the attorney assured me, this was impossible, “the
state can’t do that.”
But I’m suspicious by trade and training. So, despite
the reassurance that this could not happen, I drove
through the night to Dayton, Ohio, where, in the
morning, I found the Freedom Faith Baptist Church.
The church, a tiny white clapboard structure on a
street of foreclosed homes, had advertised it was
hosting a “Souls to the Polls” convoy. Most Ohio Afri¬
can-Americans vote on the Sunday before Election
Day, after attending church, because they can’t get off
work, or they need a ride in a church van to get to the
(voting station.)
“Souls to the Polls” began after the 2004 election
when John Kerry lost the presidency by a few votes
in Ohio. Kerry would have been president except that
Wacfc voters, some waiti ni 7 or S cours in tUe rain,)
found polling station doors closed in their faces at the
7:30 p.m. cut-off. It was safer to vote on Sunday after
church.
160 How Trump Stole 2020
At Freedom Faith Baptist, Souls-to-the-Polls orga¬
nizer Terra Williams, who didn’t know me from Adam,
invited me in for gospel and Sunday supper: chicken,
square-cut blocks of macaroni and cheese, collard
greens.
Pastor Frederick Hayes, with an electric guitar, was
rocking the church.
This little light of mine... I’m gonna let it SHINE!
After the chicken, we loaded into the church van
and headed to the lone early voting station in Dayton,
and waited.
And waited.
How Trump Stole 2020 161
Five hours. The line of more than a thousand voters
snaked through the parking lot, all waiting in the skin-
numbing Ohio November cold.
Check out these two photos: Here I am walking the
Dayton line. Now, take a look at the second photo. In it,
I am checking out the voting line in a white suburb of
Toledo, Ohio. Or, to be accurate, there was no line. Zero
wait. And to warm the Caucasian voters after their run
from SUV to doorway, poll workers put out cookies
and coffee.
Then weird turned weirder.
When the Souls at the Polls got to the end of the five-
hour line, inside the county clerk’s office, they found
the voting machines covered with what looked like
162 How Trump Stole 2020
bedsheets. Jnsteai. ofaccess^to the votini macMnes,)
instead of a ballot, each voter was handed a form to
request an absentee ballot. Why? They weren’t absent,
they were right in the polling station, but blocked from
using voting machines.
The man in charge, the County Clerk, was miserable.
He told me that the Secretary of State’s last-minute
edict to hand out absentee ballots was adding hours
to the wait for early voters. The Secretary of State was
Republican Jon Husted, as in Hasted v. APRI, purge pro.
Husted knew that impossibly long lines in Black
precincts had been crucial to Bush’s victory in 2004.
So, Husted worked hard to make them longer. He cut
early voting hours, and only a Court order stopped him
from shutting down Souls to the Polls Day altogether.
Dayton was ugly, but in Cleveland, Rev. Jesse Jackson
was reporting a wait of seven hours.
This was the result of Husted’s piece de resistance.
He allowed each county, no matter its size, to have only
one early polling station—just to be “fair.” But that
meant that Cuyahoga County, the home of Cleveland,
with over a million residents, a majority of them Black,
would have one voting station, same as Vinton County,
with fewer than 14,000 residents, including cows, all
Republicans. Moo.
How Trump Stole 2020 163
BALLOT BINGO
After five hours, the voters were handed a number
on a card and an Application for an Absentee Ballot.
We were hustled through wide doors, and I thought
we’d walked into a bingo game. A skinny white guy
in a white short-sleeve shirt was calling out numbers,
“Number 175 through 195, please line up behind Frank
in the green shirt.”
When a voter’s number came up in a half hour or so,
they got in another line to hand in their Application
for an Absentee Ballot, got the ballot, filled it out, filled
out the envelope to hold the ballot and “mailed” it in a
box set up in front of the actual voting machines white
folk would use on Tuesday.
I asked the County Clerk why voters were going
through this mad rigmarole to get “absentee” ballots
when they weren’t absent.
He said, “Because absentee ballots can be disquali¬
fied.”
What?
□ □ □
164 How Trump Stole 2020
MIDNIGHT LAW CLASS
I grabbed an absentee ballot and application and
headed off to Columbus, Ohio.
By the time I got to Professor Fitrakis’s home, it was
past midnight. An ordinary guy would have slammed
the door in my face. But Fitrakis is extraordinary, com¬
mitted to voting rights law 24/7.
I flashed the “impossible” absentee ballot forms and
he directed me to his substantial law library. Despite
the hour, the professor gave me a lesson on why
absentee ballots have never been given out at voting
stations—and the dangers to these votes from Dayton:
You vote absentee, they can pick through the
absentee and say, “They didn’t fill this out all
the way, they didn’t sign here, they didn’t initial
there,” and thus toss the absentee. Essentially
they’re treating the absentee like a second-class
provisional ballot. None of that can be done in
regular early voting.
Husted had thought of everything. What if Black folk
withstood frostbite waiting over five hours? They did. I
did not see a single voter abandon the line. But Husted
had prepared for their persistence. That explained why
he barred these voters from using the voting machines.
How Trump Stole 2020 165
(Btcause. once a vote is cast on a machine, the vote is)
instantly counted.
But when a vote is cast on paper, especially an
“absentee” ballot, the chance of it getting counted is,
well, as Professor Fitrakis said, a crapshoot.
Turdblossom Rove knew—even if his Fox News
buddies didn’t—that if Rusted disqualified about
20% of the early-voting “absentee” Black ballots on
technical grounds. Rove would realize his last, best
hope of defeating Obama (and defeating the voters).
Fritakis went to court, I went on air, and the mass dis¬
qualification of Ohio votes—which worked the trick in
2004—failed in 2012. Barely.
□ □ □
Why am I talking about Ohio 2012? Republicans are
conservatives. They find new ways to block voters, but
they conserve the old tricks too.
In November 2016 ,1 returned to Freedom Faith Mis¬
sionary Baptist. Back in the van with the Souls to Polls.
The line was down... to three hours. And at the end of
the wait, once again, “absentee” ballots for the Souls.
Trump won Ohio. Congratulations.
And in 2020... ?
2016 Presidential Election
Exit Poll/Votecount Comparison
Compltod by Jonathan D. Simon
Exit roll
Margin
Clinton*
« Trump)
Vot* Count
Margin
CHnton,
• Trump)
State
(Exit Poll
Sample Size)
Rad Shift
(♦ Indicates shift
favoring Trump)
NV |24U)
KT (1070)
VA (2a6g)
11 .( 002 )
NM(1940)
OR (1120)
mi (2702)
Ml (2774)*
Notional
Veto (217S3)
3.2%
2 . 1 %
1 . 1 %
CHAPTER 19
The Red Shift
Is Coming, the Red
Shift Is Coming
Trump’s surprise wins in Michigan, Wisconsin and
Pennsylvania were the shockers that gave him the
White House by a minuscule margin of 77,400 votes,
just one half of one percent of the vote in those states.
Look at this table.
Trump won Michigan by less than a tenth of one per¬
cent. But the exit polls showed he’d lost by 0.3%. And
in Wisconsin, while Trump won the official count by
less than 1%, the exit polls showed Clinton won by a
substantial 3.7%. In Pennsylvania, once again: exit polls
gave the win to Clinton, the official count to Trump.
No one trusts opinion polls. You shouldn’t. Because
opinion polls taken before an election have a crippling
fault: Pollsters have to remove the bias of the demo¬
graphic of those who will answer their phone, and, with
167
168 How Trump Stole 2020
even more difficulty, prognosticate which people will
actually vote. Most people say they’ll vote, but they don’t.
Exit polls are a very different animal. You don’t have
to guess who will vote: the pollster is there when they
exit the booth. No phones.
Exit polls are so accurate that the US State Depart¬
ment uses them to determine if America should
recognize a new government, to determine if a foreign
(vote count Is'honest or r^jefc Here is a page from the
State Department’s guidebook. Assessing and Verifying
Election Results, showing happy Africans having their
ballots counted, unlike African-Americans in Ohio.
USAID
MO/TM SurwiMD
ASSESSING AND VERIFYING
ELECTION RESULTS
A DECISION-MAKER’S GU1DETO PARALLEL VOTE
TABULATION AND OTHER TOOLS
TOOLS FORASSESStNG AND VERIFYING
ELECTION RESULTS
Tfus three tooK fur jssessi'ig and
election njsultr
* Paniilei vote tabulation
* Exit poll
* Election forensics
AMJL20tS
The US rejected governments in Peru, Serbia and
Ukraine based on exit polls that didn’t square with the
How Trump Stole 2020 169
official count. So, by its own guidelines, the US State
Department cannot recognize the election of Donald
Trump.
Because the exit polls were stone-cold clear: Trump lost.
How could the exit polls get it wrong? They didn’t.
Did the voters lie to the pollsters? No. The problem
is that voters know if they “voted”—that is, cast
their ballot. But they don’t know if their vote has been
counted.
The Asian-American purged by Crosscheck, the stu¬
dent purged by postcard, the Hispanic voter whose ID
has been challenged—including those who filled out
three million provisional ballots— believe they voted.
So do the million-plus African-American voters whose
ballots were deemed “spoiled.” They assume their bal-
lots we re counted. Tfaef weren’t.
And here’s a most valuable statistic from the US
Civil Rights Commission:
Your chance of having your vote spoiled is
900% higher if you’re Black than if you’re
white.
So, the difference between casting a ballot and actu¬
ally having it counted is... Donald Trump.
□ □ □
170 How Trump Stole 2020
Has this happened before? Yes. In virtually every elec¬
tion. That’s why, among polling pros, it has its own
name: Red Shift . . . states moving from Democratic
Blue in the exit polls to Republican Red in the final offi¬
cial count.
In 2012, Karl Rove’s tantrum was based on his insis¬
tent hope for a deep and bloody Red Shift: Black voters
telling exit pollsters they’d voted for Obama without
knowing that Husted had disqualified their “absentee”
ballots. If Ohio rejectedballots on the scale of 2004, the
Red Shift would have inaugurated President Romney.
WHITING OUT THE RED SHIFT
Since 2000, the media has done a good job of whiting
out the Red Shift. That year. Bush won the presidency
by taking Florida, though exit polls showed A1 Gore
had easily won. How? 179,855 Florida ballots—that’s
official—concentrated in Black townships (espe¬
cially Jacksonville and Gadsden County) were deemed
“spoiled,” not tallied, disqualified, including ballots
properly cast but with a “hanging chad”—an unseen
piece of paper stuck to the back of a punch card. Con¬
gress, rather than investigating why tens of thousands
of African-Americans’ ballots were never counted,
hauled the pollsters in front of investigative commit¬
tees to demand they explain why they “got it wrong.”
How Trump Stole 2020 171
The result: the pollsters agreed to henceforth “con¬
form” the exit polls to the official count. To make
sure that all networks fiddle the numbers in the same
manner, all five TV networks and the Associated Press
stopped doing their own polls and, since 2003, turn
over the number-bending to a single private company,
Edison Media Research.
Edison’s Executive Vice President Joe Lenski proudly
explained to the Washington Post how Edison throws
out its own data and replaces it with the official count.
For his example, he points to the April 2016 New York
primary where Bernie Sanders was in a statistical tie
(four points down) against Hillary Clinton in Edison’s
exit polls—but the “exit poll” reported was changed rad¬
ically to match the official number, a big Clinton win.
Like in New York, we were showing a four-point
margin in the exit poll at nine o’clock, but by
9:45 we were showing a 12-point margin. That’s
because we can quickly compare precinct-by-pre-
cinct what the exit poll results were and what the
full [official] results for that precinct were. So
we’re seeing precinct-by-precinct that the actual
results were that Hillary Clinton was doing four
points better than she did in the exit poll in that
precinct, we will adjust the results [of the exit
poll] accordingly.
172 How Trump Stole 2020
In other words, Edison simply replaces the exit poll
numbers with the official count, but still reports it as
exit poll numbers.
While the US State Department would consider
this manipulation of the final exit polls prima facie
evidence of a rigged election if it occurred in a foreign
country—in America, it’s just an “adjustment” and the
public is no wiser.
If the Serbian war criminal Slobodan Milosevic had
thought of “adjusting” the exit polls in Serbia, he’d
have been back in his presidential palace instead of
dying in a prison ceil in The Hague.
I’d note that in that New York primary, some
126,000 voters were wrongly purged from the roils in
Brooklyn, especially young (i.e., Sanders) voters, some
shunted to provisional ballots. So we are left with the
ugly feeling that the raw exit data was likely right, the
“adjusted” official totals the artifact of voters blocked
and votes not counted.
Pollsters took a little time to learn how to hide the
Red Shift. On Election Day 2004, at 1:05 a.m. after voting
ended, CNN exit polling reported that Democratic can¬
didate John Kerry had won Ohio’s female voters 53 % to
47 %. Among male voters, Kerry won Ohio by 51% to
49 %- But CNN’s exit polls of all voters showed Bush the
winner in Ohio, and thereby the re-elected President.
OK, class, what third sex put Bush over the top?
CHAPTER 20
The Amnesia Machine
I’ll be straight with you. I’m not big on the theories
that there’s some guy in a cave who flips a switch and
changes Democratic votes on computer touch-screen
voting machines to Republican.
If you get one thing out of this book, it’s that
most vote theft happens before the voting, by pre¬
venting people from voting: the purge of voter rolls,
the obstacle course of ID rejections, the shunting to
uncountable “provisional” ballots, the lines longer
than for a Kendrick Lamar concert.
But then. Prof. Fitrakis, an attorney, took me into a
Columbus, Ohio, courtroom just a day before the 2016
presidential election. And what I saw creeped me out.
Professor Fitrakis of Columbus State University doesn’t
sport a tin-foil hat. In fact, he’s one of the nation’s most
respected voting rights attorneys.
Ohio’s Republican voting officials said their “DRE”
173
174 How Trump Stole 2020
(Direct Recording Electronic) voting machines are
secure and accurate. DREs are those computer touch¬
screen ballots that experts in the field used to call
“Push and Pray”—you push a button for a candidate
and pray it gets recorded and tallied.
It’s like trusting your iPhone to pick your President.
“Siri, cast my ballot.” No thanks.
Because of these concerns, voting machines are
now designed to reduce the push-and-pray problem.
Today, states are installing machines with all kinds of
futuristic high-tech safety software built in so no one
can fiddle with the count.
Ohio, for example, has machines with software that
can alert officials to hacking attempts. Even better:
your individual ballot can’t be disappeared because
the machines can take a photo of each ballot, and time-
stamp and order all ballots so they can be re-counted
just like paper ballots.
How cool is that, eh?
But this is not cool: in Ohio, the protection software
was turned off.
Ohio counties had turned off the anti-hacking soft¬
ware.
And they had also turned off the ballot imaging,
erasing the time-stamped photos.
Ohio elections officials claimed it would be too dif¬
ficult, too complex, to correct the problem at the last
How Trump Stole 2020 175
minute. Activating the safety software would “cause
chaos,” the officials told the judge.
Really? Professor Fitrakis showed me the machines’
instructions. When the ES&S iVotronic machine is first
turned on, it asks if you want to engage the anti-tam¬
pering software, yes or no. It also asks. Do you want to
keep and time-stamp ballot images, yes or no.
How is that difficult? Expensive? Complex?
The judge told Fitrakis to go fly.
Judges in Ohio are elected. On these very machines.
In other words, the voting machines of Ohio are
deliberately programmed to have amnesia, to forget
who voted for whom.
(And Lord knows what other states have turned off
these security measures. Not many states are lucky
enough to have a Professor Bob on the ballot beat.)
Am I saying the Ohio electronic computer vote is
fixed?
I don’t know. How can I?
As an old gumshoe, I have a simple question: If you
(are not committing a crime, wfep are you wor&iiW so)
hard to cover it up?
Just asking.
CHAPTER 21
The Uncounted 7,854,928
I’ve told you: the dirty little secret of American elec¬
tions is that we don’t count all the ballots—and we
sure as hell don’t allow every citizen to vote.
In total, no less than 5,872,857 ballots were cast
ahai never chuhJi 31 iO^‘ 57 iffiM#¥idh,^ mimihum
of 1,982,071 voters were blocked from casting their
ballots.
TUftt is a to® of 7,854»928 votes and voters leil
uncounted.
Voting in America, especially for the young and
(voters of color, is an obstacle course: four reMstration)
is blocked; and if you’re registered you get purged; you
can’t get a ballot because you brought the wrong stu¬
dent ID; or you get a provisional ballot that’s thrown
away; or, lucky you, you get to vote on a real ballot and
it’s not counted, “residual” or “spoiled”; or, mailed in,
you left off the second stamp... and I could go on.
177
178 How Trump Stole 2020
But what’s the bottom line? How many votes lost?
How many registrations zapped? I can only give you
these calculations based on 2016 data reported by the
EAC, Census, Federal Elections Commission (EEC) and
the quadrennial Survey of the Performance of Amer¬
ican Elections (SPAE).
Provisional ballots rejected 925,973
Ballots rejected 1,913,369
Mail-in ballots rejected & lost 3,033,515
Total ballots uncounted 5,872,857
Registration purged 1,088,400
Long Lines 247,000
Wrong ID 646,671
Total voters blocked 1,982,071
VOTES UNCOUNTED & VOTERS BLOCKED 7,854,928
Let’s do a quick walk-through of this voting casualty
ward.
Provisional ballots. Those tranquilizer ballots are
limited to states and counties that report to the EAC. It
does include some “partially” counted ballots.
How Trump Stole 2020 179
Ballots rejected. The votes of those “residual” voters,
as in Michigan, where the 75,355 were not counted
when the ballot scanners broke down in Detroit.
Mail-in ballots rejected. That includes both the
512,696 ballots received and rejected and the bigger
sum of voters who did not receive their mail-in ballots
on time or did not receive them at all.
Registrations purged. Given that 340,134 and more
were wrongly purged in Georgia alone and another
half million were wrongly purged in Ohio, and 170,008
were wrongly placed on the Wisconsin purge list,
how come I’m only showing a million voters shafted
in 2016? First, someone who’s lost their right to vote
may not try or want to vote or take a provisional ballot.
Finally, I chose the most conservative number I could
find—those reporting to Gensus and SPAE that they
could not vote because of registration problems.
And let me remind you, these numbers reflect the
horror show of 2016. Since then, leading to 2020, the
purges have accelerated at warp speed.
Long lines. 1 used the MIT SPAE data on folks discour¬
aged by long lines, the lowest number 1 could find. 1 left
out folks whose polling stations could not be located—
not a small problem.
180 How Trump Stole 2020
Wrong ID. This includes those who were told they
could not vote at the polling station and those that did
not try because they did not have the required ID. I’m
also excluding well over a million more who thought
they didn’t have the right ID. And some did receive pro¬
visional ballots.
I recognize that experts at the Brennan Center and
elsewhere will find this estimate ridiculously low.
So argue with me. Experts will say I’m low, and the
perpetrators of this anti-voting crime wave will say I’m
way high (in both senses of the term). Whatever may
be the necessary refinement of these numbers, this is
an American tragedy, a democracy holocaust—a term
no one in my family would use without careful fore¬
thought.
It is a metastasizing cancer on our democracy
because the voters blocked and the votes uncounted
are not anything close to random. It’s Jim Crow and
Jose Crow and Kim Crow; and in 2020, the big, new
target of aggression and suppression, younger voters.
While this entire tome has focused on bigotry in
balloting, I must add a bit more to the mathematics of
the bias.
How Trump Stole 2020 181
VANISHING REGISTRATIONS
Professor Arnwine asked me to note,
The untold story is that 100,000 African-Amer¬
ican registrations in North Carolina were not
processed; 100,000 registrations in Florida were
not processed, meaning that these people took
the time to register to vote, and the state never
put them on the voter registration rolls.
How many registrations were tossed? The total
blows me away. An EAC press release proudly reports
that states accepted 83.4% of the 77,516,596 registra¬
tions in the two years leading up to the 2016 election.
But wait a minute: that means 16.6% were dumped.
That’s 12,867,755 rejected.
Why? Minorities tend to register in voter drives on
paper—an easy target for nitpickers with a partisan
agenda to challenge such as a wrong signature on a
cover sheet causing hundreds of registrations at a
time to get the heave-ho. And voters don’t know it.
There’s about a 6 % error rate in clerks entering names
off difficult-to-read forms. Who loses? According to
Debra Bowen, former Secretary of State of California,
where paper registration rejections hit 45 %, espe¬
cially for “unusual” names like Mohamed and names
182 How Trump Stole 2020
with hyphens and accents—look out, Mr. Garcia-
Marquez.
PROVISIONAL AMERICANS
In the Help America Vote Act of 2002, the Congressional
Black Caucus won the right for voters with wrong ID or
who were missing from the rolls to get a provisional
ballot. But they lost the right to have that ballot counted.
The bipartisan Cooperative Congressional Election
Study lays out the whole racial rainbow of vote sup¬
pression:
Forced to use provisional ballots
African-Americans vs. White 282%
Asian-Americans vs. White 284%
Hispanic vs. White 300%
Your genitalia may also determine if you get shoved
to the provisional ballot:
Women vs. Men 152%
And whatever you do, don’t show up and try to vote
young:
How Trump Stole 2020 183
Age 18 to 29 vs. 65+ 1,122%
But those are the lucky ones. Any citizen showing up
at the polls who encounters ID or registration problems
is, by federal law, entitled to a provisional ballot. Nev¬
ertheless, at least a third of those voters are refused,
or not offered the ballot. We tested this. Rachel Garbus
of our legal team called several Georgia counties to ask
about how they counted provisional ballots of those
scrubbed by Brian Kemp. The answer in most cases: We
don’t give out any ballot, provisional or otherwise, to
scrubbed voters.
Here’s the breakdown of voters that waited in line
to vote—but were sent away without any ballot at all.
From the same Gongressional study:
African-Americans vs. White 140%
Hispanic vs. White 157%
Women vs. Men 119%
Age 18 to 29 vs. 65+ 368%
Get the picture?
184 How Trump Stole 2020
DEMOCRACY SPOILED ROTTEN
There are a gazillion ways for your vote to simply not
count—some call it “spoilage”—from broken scan¬
ners, hanging chads, funky computer touchscreens
and the myriad gotchas of absentee balloting.
But if it were random, who cares? It’s anything but
random. The US Civil Rights Commission looked at
the un-count (residual or “spoiled” votes) in Florida in
2000 and found that...
The chance your vote will “spoil,” won’t get
counted, is 900% higher if you’re Black than if
you’re white.
Other studies show the Jim Crow factor has fallen to
merely horrendous levels. And, whatever you do, if the
ballot says.
don’t sign in Korean.
CHAPTER 22
Russian to Judgment
It would be so much easier, and this book could be a lot
shorter, if I could tell you that the Russians did it.
Hillfl’y, famously—infamously—did not campaign
even ofle lunch-hour in Wisconsin.
Obviously, the Russians were behind it. My sources
inform me that Putin told Clinton, “Whatever you do.
Agent Hillary, DON’T campaign in Wisconsin!”
Of course, these sources are crazy. And, I confess,
they don’t exist.
Neither does evidence of Kremlin interference in
Wisconsin, Michigan or Pennsylvania.
The Russians did not Crosscheck thousands of
voters in North Carolina, bust the scanners in Detroit,
purge half a million in Ohio nor hack the ID laws of
Wisconsin.
Yes, a Russian-based site downloaded the voter rolls of
Illinois—as did I. And we both used the same super-spy
185
186 How Trump Stole 2020
technique: we hit the “Download” button on the state
website. (Voter rolls, comrade, are public documents.)
But, the Russians-fixed-the-election story line is a lot
more acceptable to Americans than explaining that Trump
was elected by endemic racial apartheid in America’s
voting system constructed by the GOP and made possible
by their cringing enablers, the see-no-evil Democrats.
I was asked on MSNBC before the 2016 election if I
feared that the Russians would hack the voter rolls in
Ohio. I noted that Ohio Republicans control the voter
rolls, have the passwords, control the count and hand
Black voters placebo provisional ballots like candy. So,
why, I responded, would the Republicans need help from
some pimply kid in his mommy’s bedroom in Moscow?
Wrong answer, Palast! “The Russians did it” is a
cheap way for MSDNC to give you “news” quickly, so
they can get to the prescription drug commercials with
those fast-talk endings, “SnoreVex can cause your eye¬
balls to fall out, your toes to turn purple, your parents
to divorce and Mariah Carey to make another come¬
back. If you experience any of these symptoms...”
Did the Russians attempt to interfere? Yes, but about
as effectively as a mosquito interfering with s Steph
Curry three-pointer. A Russian oligarch spent a ginor-
mous $150,000 on Facebook ads, about i/io,oooth of
the $1.2 billion spent on pro-Clinton ads.
The Russians did it? Nyet.
S0V7T0
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From How Trump Stole 2020
A Greg Palast Investigation
Comics by Ted Rail
THl UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION SAYS
YOU CAN OWN A GUN. BECAUSE WHY
NOT? YOU CAN BELONG TO ANY
RELIGION YOU WANT, ir SOLDIERS WANT
TO CRASH AT YOUR HOUSE, YOU CAN
TELL THEM TO DROP DEAD.
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VERY FEW NATIONS STILL
USE ME AS A ROLE
MODEL. BUT I'M STILL
TKE LAW o' THE LAND*.
BUT THE CONSTITUTION DOES NOT
rtOLRALLY GUARANTEE YOUR RIGHT TO
VOTE. THAT'S UP TO THE STATES.
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TO GET THE COHST^OT^OKi
E.6TABLVSHE.O^ THREE-QUARTERS
OF the states at ^AVNlMU^A
had to ratify iT^ SO they
OeFAULTED
TO THE
/ ) STATES WKE^i
IT CAHE TO
P;. VOTING
I* V rights.
^mtricAl^
LvcHr»\«>’''
LEAVING ELECTIONS TO THE STATES WAS
A MAJOR SCREWUP.
YOUR HIGH SCHOOL CIVICS TEACHER
MADE DEMOCRACY SOUND SO SIMPLE.
EACH party picks A CANDIDATE. EACH
CANDIDATE CAMPAIGNS BASED ON
ISSUES. YOU. THE VOTER. VOTE TOR THE
CANDIDATE WHOSE STANCES ON THE
ISSUES YOU LIKE BEST.
VOTE.
rcui*r
clouds.
More
sun,
m^t FIGHT
AGMUST
LAMEViES^’.
SmiHE P
senate ■
U«U Sl*ar< U'«<
1ifl
riNALLY COUNT THE VOTES. THE
CAN1>I0ATE WITH THE MOST VOTES WINS.
HE OR SHE GOES TO WASHINGTON OR
THE STATE CAPITAL OR WHEREVER AND
TRIES TO PASS LAWS THAT REPLECT HIS
OR HER CAMPAIGN PROMISES.
WHAT VOUR TEACHER PR03A3LY DIDN'T
TELL YOU—WHAT THEY PROBABLY DIDN'T
KNOW—IS THAT GETTING OUT YOUR
SIDE'S VOTE IS ONLY HALF THE
EQUATION.
THERE’S ANOTHER DARK SIDE TO
ELECTIONS-- TRYING TO BLOCK THE OTHER
SIDE’S VOTE.
WL COULD COML UP
WITH POLICIES At^
BILLS THAT MAKE
PEOPLE’S LIVES better
JOURNALIST GREG PALAST HAS SPENT
MUCH or HIS CAREER INVESTIGATING HOW
POWERFUL INTERESTS CONTROLLED 8Y
WEALTHY INDIVIDUALS MANIPULATE THE
SYSTEM FROM BEHIND THE SCENES IN
ORDER TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO STEAL
YOUR VOTE.
THERt ARE BASICALLY FOUR WAYS TO
BLOCK PEOPLE FROM EXERCISING THEIR
MOST FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT AS A CITIZLN.
FIRST STOP THEM FROM REGISTERING
TO VOTE.
SECOND. IF THEY REGISTER ANYWAY.
CANCEL THEIR VOTER REGISTRATION.
THIRD. PREVENT THEM FROM GETTING
TO THE POLLS TO CAST A BALLOT.
FOURTH. IF THAT FAILS. INVALIDATE
VJH05E. VOTES W£ ALLOW
TO COUNT-LOOK LIKE.
US. TOO'
WE-'LL ALWAYS MAVE
POLITICIANS WHO LOOK
AND THE OLD TART RULERS or BOTH
PARTIES BLOCK VOTES 07 PEOPLE 07
COLOR—AND THE YOUNG.
DEMOCRATS MOSTLY 8LOCK THUR OWN
VOTERS.
IN THE 2020 CALIPORNIA PRIMARY
DEMOCRATIC SECRETARY OF STATE ALEX
PADILLA SENT BALLOTS TO 3.7 MILLION
VOTERS WITHOUT THi PR^SID^NTIAL
CANOIOATiS. THE BOGUS BALLOTS WENT
TO INDEPENDENTS WHO FAVORED BERNIE
SANDERS 3-TO-l OVER JOE BIDEN
PADILLA’S CHOICE. SANDERS WAS
CHEATED OUT OF A TON OF VOTES.
iHiowiriiiiiiYP© Dir
HERE ARE SOME or THE TUCKED-UP
GAMES VJSED TO KEEP YOU FROM
VOTING OR ir YOU DO MANAGE TO
VOTE. TO MAKE SURE YOUR VOTE
DOESN’T COUNT.
IN 2000. PALAST DISCOVERED THAT
GAP. SECRETARY 07 STATE KATHERINE
HARRIS (ALSO CHAIR or THE DUBYA TOR
PREZ CAMPAIGN) TARGETED 94 OOO
VOTERS. MOST BLACK. AS EX-CONS
BARRED FROM VOTING.
PALAST GOT THE LIST AND FOUND THAT
EXACTLY ZERO WERE ILLEGAL VOTERS.
THEIR ONLY CRIME- VOTING WHILE BLACK.
POLITICIANS AND MLDIA CRLATL HYSTERIA
OVER VOTING BY ALIENS THE DEAD AND
UNDEAD AND BY "DOUBLE VOTERS." BUT
RUTGERS POLITICAL SCIENCE PROFESSOR
LORRAINE MINNITE SAYS THE CHANCE OF
SOMEONE CASTING AN ILLEGAL VOTE IS
r/V£ TIM^S LESS LIKELY THAN A VOTER
getting HIT BY LIGHTNING.
MDilfigs ^inr^CB^s
FLORIDA TARGETED 180000 PEOPLE AS
"ALIEN" VOTERS—MAKING LATINX
AMERICANS PROVE THEY'RE AMERICANS.
HOW MANY FOREIGN VOTERS? THEY
FOUND ONE- AN AUSTRIAN WHO VOTED
REPUBLICAN.
IN 2019 A rEDERAL JUDGE ORDERED
TEXAS' SECRETARY OF STATE TO DROP
ITS PLAN TO DUMP 9SOOO PEOPLE
UNLESS THEY SENT IN THEIR 8IRTH
CERTIFICATES AND PASSPORTS WITHIN 30
DAYS.
“Perfectly legal naturalized Americans were
biirdened with what the Court finds to he
ham-handed and threatening correspondence
from the state which did not politely ask for
information but rather exemplifies the power of
government to strike fear and anxiety and to
intimidate the least powerful among us.”
—Fred Biery, U.S. District Coimt, San Antonio
IN 2004 PALASrS INVESTIGATORS GOT
HOLD or CONriDENTIAL REPU8UCAN
party piles titled "CAGING." THESE
WERE LISTS or VOTERS OP COLOR
INCLUDING BLACK SOLDIERS PROM THE
JACKSONVILLE NAVAL AIR STATION. THE
PLAN-- TO CHALLENGE THESE VOTERS AS
"GHOSTS" IE. NONEXISTENT GO TO
IRAQ. lOSL YOUR VOTE. MISSION
ACCOMPLISHED.
THl G.O.P. TARGETED SOLDIERS SENT
OVERSEAS. BLACK STUDENTS ON SUMMER
VACATION AND JEWISH "SNOWBIRDS"
VISITING FAMILY IN SUMMER. IN OTHER
WORDS. "BLUISH" VOTERS—DEMS.
THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE
SENT THEM CARDS KNOWING THAT MANY
WOULD PROBABLY GET RETURNED
UNDELIVERED INTO THE G.O.P. "CAGE"—
AND THEN CHALLENGED THEIR VOTE.
CLEANING THE ROLLS SOUNDS
REASONABLE. BUT REAL-WORLD
EXECUTION or "LIST MAINTENANCE" IS
SQUALID. IN 2019 GEORGIA'S G.O.P.
SECRETARY or STATE PURGED HALF A
MILLION BECAUSE THEY'D SUPPOSEDLY
LEFT THE STATE ... BUT THE PALAST
TEAM WENT THROUGH EVERY NAME AND
FOUND THAT 340134 HAD NEVER
MOVED . . . INCLUDING MARTIN LUTHER
KING'S 92-YEAR-OLD COUSIN WHO GOT
TOSSED OUT OF THE POLLING STATION,
IN AN INCREASINGLY WIDESPREAD TACTIC.
A I99S OHIO LAW ORDERED COUNTY
80ARDS or ELECTIONS TO PURGE THE
REGISTRATIONS OF "INACTIVE VOTERS"
WHO HADN'T CAST A BALLOT FOR SIX
YEARS AND WHO HAD NOT RESPONDED
TO A MAILER TO UPDATE THEIR
REGISTRATION. YET FEDERAL LAW SAYS
YOU CAN’T LOSE YOUR VOTE FOR NOT
THE OHIO G.O.P. SECRETARY OF STATE
DELETED 267 OOO NAMES IN 2019 ALONE.
DEMOCRATS OUTNUMBERED REPUBLICANS
ALMOST 2-TO-l ON THE PURGE LIST.
THE EXCUSE rOR REPUBLICAN STATES TO
REMOVE "INACTIVE" VOTERS’- THEY SAY
THAT IF YOU MISSED TWO ELECTIONS
AND DIDN'T RESPOND TO A JUNK-MAIL
POSTCARD OBVIOUSLY YOU'VE MOVED
FAR AWAY OUT OF YOUR COUNTY OR
STATE.
THE PALAST TEAM WENT THROUGH EVERY
NAME OF EVERY "MOVER" ABOUT TO BE
PURGED IN WISCONSIN AND FOUND THAT
163 000 OF THOSE VOTERS HAD NOT
MOVED FROM THEIR COUNTIES. THEY SAID
SEQUANNA TAYLOR, A BLACK WOMAN
MOVED OUT OF MILWAUKEE. REALLY?
SHE'S A MILWAUKEE COUNTY SUPERVISOR.
AS KANSAS StCRLTARY OF STATE
TRUMP CRONY KRIS K08ACH CREATED A
LIST OF 7.2 MILLION CRIMINAL DOU8LE
VOTERS.
8UT WHEN THE PALAST INVESTIGATORS
GOT THE SECRET LIST THEY FOUND IT
WAS SIMPLY A LIST OF COMMON NAMES:
JOSE RODRIGUEZ JESSE JACKSON DAVID
KIM—NOT DOUBLE VOTERS, BUT TYPICAL
NAMES OF VOTERS OF COLOR. OUT OF
7.2 MILLION "SUSPECTS" G.O.P. STATES
DIDN’T FIND A SINGLE CRIMINAL
VOTER—YET REMOVED M MILLION
VOTERS, MOSTLY MINORITIES.
I HAVt HERE A LIST OF 7.2
million! known criminal
DOUBLE VOTCRSf
MOST STATES' CONGRESSIONAL AND
LEGISLATIVE DISTRICTS ARE DRAWN BY
THE POLITICAL HACKS THEMSELVES. IN
HONOR or NIXON'S DIRTY TRICKSTERS
THE GAME IS CALLED "RATF^CKING." THE
G.O.P. IS WINNING THIS RAT RACE. DEMS
HAVE MORE VOTERS. YET THE G.O.P.
CONTROLS STATE LEGISLATURES 60/40
BECAUSE or REDISTRICTING.
IN ORDER TO GERRYMANDER THE LINES
OF VOTING DISTRICTS, POLITICAL HACKS
"PACK AND CRACK." YOU PACK YOUR
OPPONENT'S VOTERS INTO A SINGLE
DISTRICT, SO THE "EXTRA" VOTES ARE
WASTED—OR CRACK APART OPPOSITION
STRONGHOLDS INTO A BUNCH OF
DISTRICTS SO VOTES ARE DILUTED INTO
IMPOTENCE.
5 DtSTRICTS
5 BLUE
ORED
BLUE WINS
5 DISTRICTS
3 RED
2 BLUE
RED WINS
so PRECINCTS
60% BLUE
40% RED
THE ^CONOMIST■ "IN THE 2012
REDISTRICTING CYCLE. THE BOUNDARIES
or 487. or HOUSE DISTRICTS WERE
DRAWN ENTIRELY BY REPUBLICAN
orriCIALS, COMPARED WITH JUST 107. BY
DEMOCRATIC ONES." RESULT: IN 2016 THE
DEMOCRATS WON A MILLION MORE
VOTES rOR CONGRESS BUT THE G.O.P.
TOOK 33 MORE SEATS.
THt PARTY THaO
im
RECtWEP THE.
MOST VOTES
ANOTHER WAY TO REDUCE VOTES 8Y
targeted groups or people is to
CUT THE NUMBER OF POLLING PLACES
IN THE AREA WHERE THEY LIVE. LONG
LINES ARE DAUNTING; SOME WOULD-BE
VOTERS ARE DAUNTED AND LEAVE. AS
R.r.K. JR. FAMOUSLY DOCUMENTED IN THE
KEY SWING STATE OF OHIO IN 2004
VOTING BOOTHS ARE OFTEN REMOVED
FROM MAJORITY-BLACK DISTRICTS.
STATE LEGISLATURES CAN REDUCE THE
HOURS WHEN THE POLLS ARE OPEN.
EARLY VOTING THAT STARTS DAYS IN
ADVANCE IS MORE CONVENIENT—SO
THAT'S SOMETIMES DONE AWAY WITH.
THE NORTH CAROLINA LEGISLATURE
REDUCED THE NUMBER OF EARLY VOTING
STATIONS IN 2016, RESULTING IN AN 8.S7,
DROP IN EARLY VOTING BY BLACKS.
NORTH CAROLINA ALSO CUT BACK ON
EARLY VOTING ON SUNDAYS ADMITTING
IN COURT IT WAS BECAUSE THOSE
VOTERS TEND TO BE BLACK DEMOCRATS.
DoP.
PROPONENTS or VOTER I.D. LAWS. SUCH
AS DONALD TRUMP. SAV VOTER FRAUD
IS A PR08LEM. IN REALITY. VOTER FRAUD
IS VERY RARE. ONE REPORT FOUND 3S
CASES OUT OF 800 MILLION VOTES
CAST FROM 2000 TO 2014.
VOTER I.D. LAWS TARGET POOR OLDER
AND MINORITY VOTERS. THAT IS
DEMOCRATIC VOTERS. 80.000 APRICAN
AMERICANS IN INDIANA DON'T HAVE
VOTING I.D.s. NORTH CAROLINA’S I.D. LAW
REDUCED THE DEMOCRATIC VOTE 3Y UP
TO 37.. TEXAS ALLOWS VOTERS TO
REGISTER WITH A GUN PERMIT BUT NOT A
STUDENT I.D.
iri^©iULDii^c»
YOU MIGHT 8L REGIST£RLO TO VOTE.
YOU MIGHT PLAN TO SHOW UP ON
ELECTION DAY. 8UT WHAT IP YOU
RECEIVE AN omCIAL-LOOKING LETTER
THAT SENDS YOU TO THE WRONG PLACE
TO VOTE? ir YOU'RE A GO-GETTER YOU
CAN CALL THE BOARD OF ELECTIONS.
BUT YOU'LL BE LUCKY IF ANYONE PICKS
UP THE PHONE ON THE BUSIEST DAY OF
THE YEAR.
VOTING PROCEDURE DISINFORMATION IS
WHEN YOU SEND FALSE INFORMATION
ABOUT WHEN AND HOW TO VOTE IN
RECALL ELECTIONS FOR THE WISCONSIN
STATE SENATE IN 2011, THE PRO¬
REPUBLICAN GROUP AMERICANS FOR
PROSPERITY FOUNDED BY THE KOCH
BROTHERS, SENT DEMOCRATIC VOTERS A
MAILING THAT GAVE THE WRONG DEADLINE
FOR RETURNING ABSENTEE BALLOTS IN
THE HOPE THAT THEY WOULD BE SENT IN
TOO LATE TO COUNT.
WHAT SETTER WAY TO KEEP YOUNG
MINORITY VOTERS WHO DISTRUST THE
POLICE (WITH GOOD REASON) AWAY
FROM ELECTIONS THAN BY REQUIRING
VOTERS TO PASS THROUGH A GAUNTLET
OF ARMED POLICE OFFICERS? AND
REPUBLICANS SENT LATINX VOTERS FALSE
WARNINGS THAT I.C.E. GOONS WERE
ARRESTING VOTERS AT THE POLLS.
yi^ijicoiyiG^'iriiP
THl NASTY SECRET OF U.S. ELECTIONS^
^/£ OONT COUNT ALL THE. VOTES. THREE
MILLION BALLOTS ARE "DISQUALiriED" OR
NOT RECORDED IN A TYPICAL NATIONAL
ELECTION YEAR. THE U.S. CIVIL RIGHTS
COMMISSION FOUND IN 2000 THAT IF
YOU'RE BLACK YOUR CHANCE OF YOUR
BALLOT GETTING JUNKED IS 9007, HIGHER
THAN IF YOU'RE WHITE.
mm
THE CHANCE YOU'LL GET ONE OP THESE
"HEY YOU'RE NOT REGISTERED BUT HERE'S
A PIECE or PAPER" BALLOTS IS SIX TIMES
GREATER IF YOU'RE YOUNG AND BLACK
THAN IF YOU'RE OLD AND WHITE. THREE
MILLION OF THESE BALLOTS WERE CAST
IN 2016—AND ONE MILLION THROWN IN
THE DUMPSTER. THAT'S OFFICIAL.
WE:LL,YOU CAN ^
ALWAYS \JSt
"nni^ "provisional
BALLOT."
WILL IT
BE. COUNTEO?JcSk
NOT
really
WAwmm
iF©i^ v©iri i^ysiryi^ifl©
CRAZY BUT TRUE. ELECTIONS ARE
ADMINISTERED BY PARTISAN POLITICAL
HACKS APPOINTED BY POLITICIANS
LOYAL TO ONE OF THE MAJOR
PARTIES. HERE ARE SOME OF THE
MOST NOTORIOUS MISCREANTS.
ms
:8E nmm runsiK* mui
KrORt RUNNING TOR GOVERNOR
AGAINST STACEY A8RAMS IN 2018 THE
G.O.P. SECRETARY OF STATE OF GEORGIA
PURGED HALF A MILLION VOTERS
REFUSED TO ADD 40000
REGISTRATIONS OF YOUNG MINORITY
VOTERS TO THE ROLLS, AND THREATENED
TO ARREST KOREAN AMERICAN VOTER
REGISTRATION VOLUNTEERS—WHICH
TURNED OUT TO 8E ENOUGH EVIL TO
STEAL HIS OWN ELECTION.
m sumi
m SDSTLEH
AS OHIO SECRETARY OF STATE, THIS
REPUBLICAN ORDERED THE CLOSING OF
EVERY EARLY VOTING STATION (USED BY
707, OF BLACK VOTERS) EXCEPT ONE
PER COUNTY—SO THAT CLEVELAND WITH
A MILLION (BLACK) PEOPLE GOT ONE
POLL. THERE WERE SEVEN-HOUR WAITS.
VINTON, POPULATION 14 OOO INCLUDING
COWS, GOT ITS OWN IN-AND-OUT POLL.
ssim w. Sim
m gossip or ritic crow
OH NO! tVLN THE NICE "LIBERALS" AT THE
PEW CHARITABLE TRUST ARE IN THE
RACIAL VOTE PURGE BUSINESS. PEW
CREATES THE "ERIC" PURGE LIST TOR
STATES LIKE WISCONSIN—WRONGLY
targeting young voters and voters
or COLOR. PEW IS TECHNICALLY
INNOCENT. THEY JUST LOAD THE GUNS
AND HAND THE PURGE WEAPON TO THE
STATE ornCIALS. WHO PULL THE
TRIGGER.
SKIS mcs
:hs k;k6 o? mmu
CREATED THE LIST 07 7.2 MILLION
"POTENTIAL DOU8LE VOTERS" THAT
TARGETED l-IN-7 AFRICAN AMERICANS
AND l-IN-6 ASIAN AMERICAN AND
LATINX VOTERS: NONE VOTED TWICE.
CHOSEN 8Y HIS 8UDDY TRUMP TO HEAD A
"VOTER FRAUD" COMMISSION WHICH
COLLAPSED WHEN THEY COULDN’T FIND
ANY FRAUDULENT VOTERS. BECAUSE WHO
ACTUALLY DOES THAT?
w'!» nr
m smom;
rOX TV COMMENTATOR AND THE
"3RAINS" BEHIND THE CLAIM THAT OVER
TWO MILLION ILLEGAL ALIENS VOTE. BUT
IN THE PAST TWO YEARS. THEY'VE
LOCATED THREE—ALL OP WHOM ARE
NOW IN PRISON. BUT SPAKOVSKY-
INSPIRED "PROVE YOU'RE A CITIZEN-
LAWS HAVE COST TENS OF THOUSANDS
or LEGIT CITIZENS THEIR REGISTRATIONS.
m smc:
ELECTIONS BOARD DIRECTOR IN NORTH
CAROLINA UNTIL 2019 WHEN SHE IGNORED
ILLEGAL REPUBLICAN "BALLOT
harvesting." hired an FBI AGENT WHO
SPENT SIX MONTHS LOOKING FOR THE
33 000 "FRAUDULENT" VOTERS SHE
NAMED. THERE WERE NO BUSTS. ALL OF
THEM WERE INNOCENT EXCEPT FOR THE
CRIME OF VOTING WITHOUT WHITE SKIN.
m im
BUSH'S
ROVE'S orncE created illegal caging
LISTS. 8USH CALLED HIM "TURD
8LOSSOM" BECAUSE HIS METHODS STANK
BUT WON ELECTIONS.
Hi: msoK
or mmm
IN 2016 SHE BLOCKED THE HAND COUNT
or 73 3SS PAPER BALLOTS IN DETROIT
THAT BROKEN SCANNERS FAILED TO
COUNT. TRUMP "WON" MICHIGAN BY JUST
10 700 VOTES—BECAUSE THOSE VOTES
IN DETROIT WEREN'T COUNTED.
mt miLLii
THE DEMOCRATIC SECRETARY OF STATE
or CALIFORNIA FIXED PRIMARY RACES
AGAINST 3ERNIE SANDERS TWICE. PADILLA
REJECTED MORE B.S. PROVISIONAL
BALLOTS THAN ALL OTHER STATES IN
AMERICA COMBINED. THESE
"TRANQUILIZER" BALLOTS WENT TO
INDEPENDENT VOTERS WHO PREFERRED
SANDERS 3-TO-I OVER PADILLA'S FAVES.
seon nim
fiO^ERKOR SOKE
THE VOTERS MAY HAVE TIRED HIS ASS IN
2018 8UT HIS I.D. LAW IN WISCONSIN MAY
WELL PICK OUR NEXT PRESIDENT. HE
DENIED 182 000 U. OF WISCONSIN
STUDENTS THE RIGHT TO VOTE (IN A
STATE THE DONALD WON 8Y JUST
22000 VOTES).
VOTE RUSTLING AIN’T CHEAP. IT TOOK AN
EXPENSIVE CAMPAIGN TO GUT THE
VOTING RIGHTS ACT AND PREVENT A
CONGRESSIONAL HX.
THE LOBBYING CAMPAIGN WAS PUNOED BY
THIS BILLIONAIRE INFAMOUS FOR SEIZING
THE FUNDS INTENDED FOR CHOLERA
MEDICINE FOR CONGO.
L VOTtD.
NOW X
FEEL awful!
THE NOVEL CORONAVIRVJS CRISIS
REQUIRES PEOPLE TO STAY AT HOME OR
RISK CONTRACTING A DANGEROUS
DISEASE. YOU CANT REALLY "SOCIAL
DISTANCE" AT A PU8LIC VOTING
STATION. SO MANY PEOPLE ARE
suggesting that we vote by mail.
ASSUMING THl GOVERNMENT COULD PULL
TOGETHER VOTE BY MAIL QUICKLY
ENOUGH rOR NOVEMBER 2020—A
LOGISTICAL AND BUREAUCRATIC
CHALLENGE DURING THE BEST OP
TIMES—GOING POSTAL WOULD ALMOST
CERTAINLY RESULT IN A TON OP "LOST-
VOTES. IN 2016 MORE THAN SOO OOO
MAIL-IN BALLOTS WERE REJECTED, NOT
COUNTED AT ALL.
AN M.l.T. STUDY POUND THAT 22% OP
ALL MAIL-IN VOTES WERE EXPUNGED.
DISPROPORTIONATELY THOSE OP PEOPLE
OP COLOR.
a • le
POLS STEAL YOUR VOTE BECAUSE IT'S
WORTH A WHOLE LOT . . . TO THEM AND
THEIR BILLIONAIRE BUCK BUDDIES. DON'T
STEAL YOUR OWN VOTE BY NOT VOTING.
YOUR VACCINE DEPENDS ON IT.
for more info go to vvww.GregPalast.com
CHAPTER 23
California Reamin'
In February 2020, 3,721,903 California voters received
their ballots in the mail—without the presidential
candidates.
I can’t make that up.
Think California and you think of laid-back surfer
dudes, vegan taco trucks and progressive Democrats.
But buried under the palm trees are the uncounted
ballots of millions. No state—not Georgia, not Florida,
not Ohio—comes even close, for sheer number of bal¬
lots disqualified, than The Golden State—thanks to
the sticky fingers of its Democratic Secretary of State,
Alex Padilla.
Here’s how he does it. While Galifornians vote over¬
whelmingly for Democrats in general elections, (5^
million voters, mostly the young and Latinos, refuse
to join the Party. They register as independents or, as
they are called in Galifornia, No Party Preference (NPP)
235
236 How Trump Stole 2020
voters. Each of these five million voters is legally enti¬
tled to vote in the Democratic primary —but good luck
trying.
Just before Christmas 2019, each of these 5 million
indie voters was mailed a postcard offering the chance
to get a ballot with the Democratic presidential pri¬
mary candidates. The postcards looked like junk mail,
and 91% of voters threw them out.
Sound familiar? Yes, it’s the postcard trick. Golden
State style. Paul Mitchell, recognized as the states’ top
voting statistician, calls this “Disenfranchisement by
Postcard’’—similar to the Husted/Kemp purge-by¬
postcard game but on a far grander scale.
Who gets screwed out of their ballot? Target one:
the 1.4 million young NPP voters, the 18- to 24- year-
olds, who move from dorm room to dorm room,
apartment to apartment, sofa to sofa, and often don’t
get the cards.
In other words, Bernie Sanders voters.
Almost no young voters (only one in twenty) return
the postcards allowing them to vote for President.
Target two: Latinx NPP voters who also return only 1
in 20 of the postcards. California Hispanics voted over¬
whelming for “Tio Bernie.”
You won’t be surprised to learn that Secretary of
State Padilla does not consider Bernie his tio. Padilla,
while directing this postcard pogrom of Latinx and
How Trump Stole 2020 237
TOTAL.
Dem Crossover Ballots
TOTAL
4.093.300
371.397
9.1%
Latino
1,044.507
47.343
4.5%
Asian
631.191
43.865
6 . 99 ^
African American
105,112
9,702
9.2%
18-34
1,413.704
69,709
4.996
35-44
774.493
58,799
7.6%
45-54
651.332
56.887
8.796
55-64
574,500
67,448
11.796
65+
678.432
118,498
17-596
RENTER
756,596
53,469
7.196
HOMEOWNER
1,921,678
225,536
U .796
238 How Trump Stole 2020
young voters, cam pa i^ed for Joe Biienlri the 2620;
primary, and for Hillary Qinton in the 2016 primary
against Sanders.
Political Data Inc., Mitchell’s firm, the respected
source of polling data for both the Republicans and
Democrats, surveyed the independent NPP voters in
2020 and found that a large majority (61%)—well over
two million citizens—^very much wanted to vote in the
Democratic Primary. However, only one in eleven got
the ballot with the candidates.
Older (65+) voters—those who prefer Medicare for
Me as opposed to Medicare for All—were nearly four
times as likely to get ballots as the young voters.
Well over a million NPP voters were denied ballots
they wanted and had a legal right to obtain.
Polling shows that most California voters who want
to get the ballot are just clueless about how to do so.
Another third of California voters thought they had no
legal right to exchange their no-candidate ballot.
PDI measured NPP candidate preferences a week
before the March 2020 primary. Sanders was the NPP
independents’ favorite. It’s easy to calculate from the
PDI data that 553,ooo NPP Californians for Sanders
never received the ballot with their candidate’s name.
And thus, Bernie was burned out of half a million pri¬
mary votes—and scores of delegates to the Democratic
convention.
How Trump Stole 2020 239
I must add that another candidate threatening
Biden, Mike Bloomberg (a fave of older, white inde¬
pendent voters) was also given the Golden State shaft:
about 382,000 of Bloomberg’s would-be voters never
got the ballot with their candidate.
THE MAGIC WORD “CROSSOVER”
There is another way for the five million indepen¬
dent voters to get to vote for their candidate: they can
bring their “NPP” ballot into the polling station and
exchange it for a ballot with presidential candidates.
Not many know about this option, but be careful: a
woman voting in front of me brought in her Bernie-free
NPP ballot... but was bounced because she forgot to
bring the envelope.
But now it turns from weird to Kafka. The voter
must turn in their NPP ballot and ask for... a “Demo¬
cratic Crossover” ballot. In many counties, if the voter
doesn’t know the magic word “Crossover,” they’re S***
Out of Luck; no new ballot.
The poll workers are muzzled. If the voter asked for a
Democratic Party ballot, they were told, “NPP voters can’t
have a Democratic ballot.” The poU workers were not
allowed to say, “Oh, you want a Crossover ballot.” Some
poll workers, taking mercy on those who may have waited
hours in line, used rule-bending hints and pantomime.
240 How Trump Stole 2020
Official Ballot
Democratic Crossover
Official Ballot
Democratic
PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY ELECTION, March 03. 2020 • County of
5 million California voters can only use the "Crossover"
ballot—and 4 million of them have no idea how to
get it
Jen Abreu was a poll worker in San Diego, and this
magic word game bothered her big time.
If this NPP voter did not specifically ask for a
Democratic crossover ballot, they were given an
official NPP ballot, which did not list presidential
candidates.
Many confused poll workers gave the NPP voters
Democratic ballots, not ones marked “CROSSOVER,”
not realizing that, in most counties, those ballots
would be tossed out, disqualified.
How Trump Stole 2020 241
Some voters were given provisional ballots instead of
crossover ballots—again, grounds for disqualification.
And some voters were told to simply write “Sanders”
on their NPP ballots. Which they might as well throw
right into the burn barrel.
The state of Colorado ignored the diktat of the DNC
for its own open primary, sending each independent
voter both a Democratic and Republican ballot, making
it easy to vote as one chooses. Kind of like a democracy.
Sanders won Colorado in a walk.
In California, with the confusion at the polls and the
pressure of long lines, provisional ballots were handed
out like candy. In Orange County and elsewhere, poll
workers were told to hand independent voters pro¬
visional, not crossover, ballots. Confusion? Malice?
^Quien sabe?
Three days after the primary, 345,000 provisionals
had not yet been “processed”—not even looked at,
let alone counted. Most were for NPP (i.e., young and
Latinx) voters who did not know they had to bring in
their NPP ballots for the goofy “exchange” process.
We can estimate the number of provisional ballots
that will be deep-sixed. Sec. of State Padilla has to
report his rejection rate in general elections to the fed¬
eral government. In 2016, Padilla’s system disqualified
over 400,000 ballots, about 31% of all provisionals.
California threw out more provisional votes than all
242 How Trump Stole 2020
Other 49 states combined. And that was in a general
election. In the primary, it would be worse.
BERN’D IN 2016
I first took note of the California Democratic Party’s
championship vote suppression system in 2016 during
the primary race between Sanders and Clinton.
This caught my eye:
—8.6 million: the number of Californians who
cast ballots in the presidential primary.
— 7.3 million: the number of votes counted for
all presidential primary candidates.
Math whizzes will note a discrepancy of 1.3 million
votes.
Did people wait in line, in some cases for hours, to
vote for ... no one? Or did a million-plus Californians
just want to vote in the race for local sheriff?
Doubtless, there are some Californians, especially
since the legalization of recreational marijuana, who
just like to hang out at polling stations. Whatever, we
can reasonably assume that most of those whose bal¬
lots were cancelled were voters “disenfranchised by
postcard” and who sent the no-president ballot, or
How Trump Stole 2020 243
wrote “Sanders” on their NPP ballots, or received a
Democratic ballot instead of the Crossover—and so
had their ballot disqualified.
That year, three-quarters of a million primary voters
were shunted to provisional ballots. (How marn were)
destroyed uncounted? Padilla won’t say. Apparently,
(complete election returns are a state secret.)
I’ve asked Padilla’s office six times to locate the 1.3
million missing 2016 votes and tell me what happened
to them. For the Guardian, I filed a formal Freedom of
Information request. So far, we have neither freedom
nor information, just silence and a tall stone wall.
In 2016, Padilla declared Hillary Clinton winner of
California’s primary by a slim margin. The win was
enough to effectively put an end to Sanders’s run.
Most of the uncounted ballots in 2016, as in 2020,
represented attempts to vote by those beleaguered
NPP independent voters. This led to many reports sug¬
gesting Sanders’s win could be buried in that giant pile
of rejected ballots.
PolitiFact declared that the several reports that
Sanders’s victory was in the hundreds of thousands of
uncounted votes was a “pants on fire lie.” (PolitiFact
is a self-appointed arbiter of truth; in reality, they’re
just a gaggle of amateur googlers paid by Facebook
as censors for Mre.) According to PolitiFact, “Sanders
would have to win the remaining votes by roughly a 2
244 How Trump Stole 2020
to 1 margin to overtake Clinton”—and quoted a poll¬
ster who said, “You’re smoking something if you think
that’s going to happen.”
I don’t smoke, but unlike PolitiFact, I checked the
facts, turning to the Golden State poll from Stanford
University. The Golden State reported that Sanders
crushed Clinton among NPP voters 67% to 29%, well
more than two to one. Even the pollster they quoted
showed Sanders ahead—an intra-party red shift. I
guess a PolitiFact, like a FoxFact, is not a Factual Fact.
IS SILICON VALLEY IN CALIFORNIA?
One big reform could give democracy a chance in Cali¬
fornia—and throughout America: “SDR” as legislators
call it, “Same Day Registration.” If you’re wrongly
purged from the rolls, or given a bullshit NPP ballot,
rather than walking out without voting or accepting
a may-not-get-counted provisional ballot, you can
simply register or re-register right on the spot.
California has had Same Day Registration on the
books for more than eight years. It was signed into law
in 2012 by Governor Jerry Brown with a lot of self-con¬
gratulatory hoopla from the Guv about making voting
easier. But for a voter in Los Angeles who knew they
could register on Election Day (and almost no one
knew), you’d have to drive to the County building in
How Trump Stole 2020 245
Norwalk, which, from my house, for example, is a two-
hour round trip. Virtually no one took advantage of
this so-called right.
Why can’t Americans register right at the polling
station? In the case of California, the Democratic
political leadership was smart enough to place a little
landmine in their SDR law: no one could register at a
polling station until the state properly computerized
its voter registry.
Other states—like Mississippi and Alabama—
had computerized their voter rolls years earlier. But
California simply could not, over eight years, figure
out how to properly digitize its files. I was under the
impression that California has a few folks who know
about computers. But Jerry Brown and Alex Padilla
could not seem to find them.
CHAPTER 24
How to steal Your Own Vote
Well, first, stop reading this book.
Information is a pain in the ass, a barking dog that
won’t stop barking until you understand that Lassie
wants you to save the kid in the frozen pond. (Loved that
show!)
Because once you know for certain that there are
ballot bandits singing in the basement, you’re obli¬
gated to take action. To make noise, make trouble,
make a difference.
And you’ll vote, |ffornp other reason thanypuyvori’t
let the bastards steal your vote ... and you won’t steal
it from yourself by not voting. You’ll vote in person and
early—after you’ve checked your registration in Sep¬
tember each and every year.
But there are those little voices still in your head
that say, “Screw’m. They’re all liars; they all disappoint
us or worse. They get a Nohel Peace Prize then launch
247
248 How Trump Stole 2020
a new war. They campaign ‘for the hard-working
middle class,’ then cut taxes for their billionaire buck
buddies.”
You think they’re all the same or there’s not enough
difference between them to stop playing Call of Duty
and stand in line with the other suckers.
So, you steal your own vote.
That’s exactly what happened in Wisconsin and
Michigan.
You’ve now read that long chapter on how they
stole Wisconsin in 2016. But there’s an uglier side to
this story, which we like to keep quiet, like we keep
quiet about our criminally insane aunt living in our
attic.
I read the news reports about a University of Wis¬
consin study that said Trump won the state by 22,000
votes because more than 50,000 African-American
and student voters were blocked by the new ID law.
But, in violation of the rules of American journalism,
I read the whole study, not just the press release.
The professors calculated that, as big as the ID
blockade on students and Black voters was, it wouldn’t
have mattered but for the decision of at least another
50,000 not to vote because they didn’t like the choice
of candidates. And they weren’t upset that Marco
Rubio wasn’t on the ballot.
A lot of my closest (ex-)friends said, “If Bernie’s not
How Trump Stole 2020 249
on the ballot, if they give us that harridan in a pants
suit, well, fageddaboutit. I’m not voting.”
I get it. They even had a Twitter handle, “#Bernie or
Bust.”
So, comrades, how’s Bust working out for you?
CHAPTER 25
“Second,as Farce”
In i7’^‘'-century England, the Levelers, the democratic
socialists of the day, provided the troops for Oliver
Cromwell’s New Model Army defending England’s Par¬
liament against the tyrant King Charles I. The army of
commoners defeated the Royalists and installed Crom¬
well in place of the King.
At that time, only landed gentry could vote. So, the
foot soldiers, all commoners, demanded their right to
vote for the members of the Parliament for whom they
had just risked their lives. Cromwell agreed to meet
with the Martin Luther Kings of the day, the voting
rights leaders. Cromwell ordered those who demanded
the right to vote to draw straws. The one who drew the
shortest straw was executed on the spot on Cromwell’s
orders.
The fight to vote is long and bloody.
History repeats itself, said Karl Marx, first as tragedy.
251
252 How Trump Stole 2020
second as farce. Oliver Cromwell is tragedy; Katherine
Harris, Kris Kobach and Agent Orange are the B-movie
farce. But I’m not laughing.
REVOLUTION
The fight for the franchise started long before America
was America.
George Washington, whom we dismiss as “The
Father of Our Country,” as if he were just some sperm
donor with wooden teeth, was a radical on today’s
simplistic spectrum, well to the left of Bernie Sanders.
Instead of food, he nourished his cold, starving troops
at Valley Forge with readings from Tom Paine’s Crisis
and its call for armed revolt.
The hardest fought victory for Washington,
according to fellow warrior Thomas Jefferson, was for
the Disestablishment Clause of the Constitution, what
we call “Freedom of Religion” in the First Amendment.
Via the First Amendment, Jefferson and Washington
did battle against the pre-revolutionary requirements
of voters to swear an oath to the Lord Jesus that had
kept Jews from voting. Likewise, some states required
voters to swear they had no allegiance to a foreign
power, that is, the Pope. Catholics could not vote until
Jefferson won the Bill of Rights.
Of course, the First Amendment was not enough.
How Trump Stole 2020 253
The Bill of Rights aimed to give the federal vote to all
citizens, but Rhode Island did not allow Jews to vote in
state elections until 1842, nor could Catholics vote in
North Carolina until 1868. Notably, Catholics obtained
the franchise in that state a/ter African-Americans.
American Natives did not obtain US citizenship
until 1924. But these indigenous Americans did not
get the federal government’s protection of their right
to vote until 1962, and no practical right to have their
votes counted until... well, that hasn’t happened yet.
More ballots are spoiled or disqualified in pueblos and
(reservations than in any other community.)
In 2004, the BBC sent me to New Mexico to inves¬
tigate the mysterious failure of the state’s pueblo
dwellers to cast votes for President. But the “under¬
vote” was astronomical, sufficient to cost John Kerry
the election to George Bush. New Mexico’s then-Sec-
retary of State, Rebecca-Giron, explained away the
massive presidential undercount, telling me that in the
pueblos and poor Hispanic communities, “People just
don’t want to vote for President.”
BETTER VOTERS PRODUCE BETTER
POLITICIANS
We Progressives bitch and moan about America—that’s
our prophetic imperative, and I don’t apologize—^but if
254 How Trump Stole 2020
you step back and look over the arc of history, America
has grown more progressive over the decades. We are
indeed the Shining Light on the Hill, even if Trump
and his billionaire buck buddies keep trying to blow
out the Light.
And this little beam of ours is the direct result of the
expanding group of voters that politicians must pay
attention to.
Progressive humanism has been America’s defining
trajectory, from George Washington building light¬
houses along the coast and thereby establishing
government as protector of the general welfare, to reg¬
ulating the prices of the power and gas monopolies,
to Medicare, to the War in Iraq. (OK, not the war. Two
steps forward, one back.)
Americans take democracy’s irresistible advance for
granted, and therefore don’t protect it, in part because
we Americans are weirdly proud to be ignorant of our
own history. Hillary Clinton’s comment that no candi¬
date has ever challenged the outcome of a presidential
election was notable for the fact that the press parroted
this gem of nincompoopery as gospel truth.
I guess Hillary was in a coma in 2000 when A 1 Gore
went to the Supreme Court to challenge his loss to
Bush.
In fact, challenges are the norm, not the exception,
beginning with Andrew Jackson’s fury when John
How Trump Stole 2020 255
Adams swindled Jackson out of the Presidency (a steal
corrected four years later).
No challenges to the theft of elections? What may
be the most consequential presidential election in US
history threatened to re-ignite the Civil War—and
it’s a shame it didn’t. Democrat James Tilden crushed
Republican Rutherford B. Hayes in both the popular
vote and in the Electoral College. However, Congress
shifted 20 electoral votes to Hayes in a “compromise”
that even the Devil found disgusting: Southern white
Democrats sold their electoral votes to the Republi¬
cans in return for Hayes agreeing to pull US troops
from the South, thereby ending Reconstruction. The
Ku Klux Klan and Jim Crow replaced the Union troops.
The gains of the Civil War were reversed: Black people
lost their right to vote and fell into financial servitude.
□ □ □
There are fights for the vote Americans don’t know we
fought. (Wot many Americans fciow or cafe ^out one)
of the giant steps in voting rights, the right to elect
our Senators, not granted until the 17th Amendment
was won in the early 20th Century. Until then, state
legislatures chose Senators. These were often just auc¬
tions for moneyed interests, such as the “election” of
Sen. William Andrews Clark, the robber baron railroad
256 How Trump Stole 2020
magnate who flat-out purchased his US Senate seat by
buying Montana’s legislators with cash.
The response to the Senate for sale was the 17th
Amendment, the crowning achievement of the Pop¬
ulist Movement and The Grange, whose peasant
uprising against the railroads and other corporate
monopolies left a lot of patriot blood on the prairie.
The 17th Amendment was shepherded by Repub¬
lican Senator Joseph L. Bristow, who represented what
was then the most progressive state in the union,
Kansas. Special props to Bristow for successfully
fighting to remove language in the proposed Amend¬
ment that would have allowed states to restrict Black
voters.
(Don’t take your right to vote for Senator for granted.
The late Justice Antonin Scalia questioned the Amend¬
ment; so has his Sith Warrior colleague. Sen. Ted Cruz
[R-TX].)
□ □ □
REGISTER VOTERS, NOT GUNS?
Because Americans are born with a genetic inability
to absorb history, even progressives don’t question
habitual vote suppression techniques such as the
wholly unnecessary, absurd requirement to register to
How Trump Stole 2020 257
vote. Registration is the place where most racist vote
suppression mischief occurs—and that was always the
intent.
This unnecessary extra step to your “inalienable
rights” began as a method to block the vote of new
citizen immigrants in cities, to keep power in rural
areas. Voting historian Alexander Keyssar notes that
the registration game began in the 19th century when
the Pennsylvania state legislature required voters to
register, but only in Philadelphia, not the farm coun¬
ties. This was aimed at keeping the new citizens from
Europe and Black migrants from the South from voting.
Thom Hartmann’s terrific Hidden History of the War
on Voting notes that, in 1908, New York limited regis¬
tration to Saturdays or during the Yom Kippur holiday,
to exclude Jewish Levelers.
What if we simply did away with registration? In
1951, North Dakota got rid of voter registration. Yet
no one has caught a Canadian moose sneaking into
a Dakota voting booth. Nor do “aliens” from South
Dakota try to vote in the North, nor do escaped felons
or the undead.
The alien in my house has the right to vote in her
native Switzerland without registering. The Swiss don’t
have a fear of hordes of “illegal alien” voters—though
the nation has a foreign-born immigrant population
that is, proportionately, far larger than that of the US.
258 How Trump Stole 2020
So why fight over the rules of registration when we
should be saying, end the registration game.
CHAPTER 26
Follow the Chainsaw
This is not really a book about voting rights. It’s about
power. And in America, power comes out of the barrel
of a checkbook.
Take Georgia. In another of his campaign commer¬
cials, Kemp pulls the starter cord on his
chainsaw— Brr-ZOOM !—"to rip up regulations.”
259
260 How Trump Stole 2020
Who invented Brian Kemp? The pretend redneck is
just the glove puppet on camera. Whose fingers are in
the glove?
Cui bono? Who would benefit from a regulatory
chainsaw massacre?
Follow the money. Kemp’s big money came from
two sources. The first, Georgia-Pacific.
If you wipe your behind, you’ve probably come into
contact with Georgia-Pacific. They are America’s big
producer of toilet paper and other wood pulp prod¬
ucts. For a company that makes toilet paper, they have
one hell of a giant office building in Atlanta. That’s
because it may say Georgia-Pacific on the outside, but
inside, it’s the southern headquarters of Georgia-Pacif-
ic’s owner, Koch Industries.
Georgia-Pacific is in the business of cutting down
trees. By the millions, in Georgia, which pulps more of
its trees than any other state. The Brothers Koch, infa¬
mously allergic to government regulation, were not
thrilled with the idea of a Governor Stacey Abrams.
She’d litigated for Atlanta’s Watershed Management
Agency.
Georgia-Pacific has also gone big into coal and Koch
Oil was expanding drilling offshore. Abrams promised
to “Green” the Peachtree state with a ban on offshore
drilling. She thinks the planet is hot enough. And she
is not a friend of tree massacres.
How Trump Stole 2020 261
Georgia-Pacific has also been linked to some of
the United States’ worst toxic waste sites, according
to SourceWatch. Georgia-Pacific is a top sky-dumper,
spewing over 15 million tons of toxins into the air each
year. They need a governor who will protect their filth
machine (https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/
Georgia-Pacific).
Koch Industries, like the Lord, helps those who help
themselves. Kemp owns timberland and is a member
in good standing of the Georgia Forestry Association.
And Kemp backed the Fair Forest Tax amendment to
the state constitution that cut Koch’s tax bill (and his
own).
In 2019, Governor Kemp joined Georgia-Pacific GEO
Christian Fischer to cut the ribbon on a new Geor¬
gia-Pacific lumber mill—with his chainsaw. (I can’t
make that up.) Kemp cut the ribbon, cut the regula¬
tion—and Fischer, for Koch PAG, cut the check.
□ □ □
The other big giver to Kemp’s campaign: Georgia
Power. From my days as a racketeering investigator, I
got to know Georpa Power weU—as a criminal enter¬
prise parading as an electric company.
In the 1980s and 1990s, the company stole from its
captive customers by charging for parts it never used.
262 How Trump Stole 2020
I was sent into Georgia to get the evidence of this mul-
timillion-dollar scam. A grand jury voted to indict the
company and its officers for criminal racketeering, but
the power giant hired a former US Attorney General
and Georgia Power broker Griffin Bell to convince his
old department to let the charges go away.
I asked the head of the Mineworkers Union, Rich
Trumpka, to help me get into the coalfields to inves¬
tigate the company’s habit of filling railcars with rocks
and charging its electric customers for “coal.” Trumpka
said he could get me into the Alabama coalfields, but
unlikely he could get me out alive.
Georgia Power’s parent. Southern Gompany, annu¬
ally takes the crown as the number-one polluting
corporation in the USA, the greenhouse gas champ.
And there were dead bodies to be explained,
including the never-explained explosion of the com¬
pany jet carrying Senior Vice President Jake Horton,
charged with bribing regulators on the company’s
behalf. “Poor Jake,” Southern’s then-chairman told us
at BBG, “I guess he saw no other way out.”
But Georgia Power’s real problem is Plant Vogtle 2,
the last nuclear plant in construction in America, cur¬
rently a half-built heap of steal and concrete on which
the company has already blown $4 billion. The Japa¬
nese contractor signed to build it had fled the project
(after the meltdown at Fukushima), not prepared
How Trump Stole 2020 263
to lose their shirt. The Obama Administration had
quietly put the US taxpayers on the hook for a multi-
billion-dollar bailout of the nuke. But even that isn’t
enough easy-squeezie to keep the project going ... or
to keep Georgia Power from financial ruin, possibly
bankruptcy.
Georgia Power faced an existential threat, a gun¬
slinger ready to put a bullet through their balance
sheet: Stacey Abrams announced that she would put
an end to the Vogtle nuclear nightmare. Continuing
construction would add literally thousands of dollars
to Georgia households’ electric bills; and Abrams said
she would block this raid on ratepayers.
Courageous, yes, but it called down the mighty
weight of Georgia Power against her, not to mention
the political enmity of the hundreds of contractors
who were cranking millions out of this nuclear boon¬
doggle. (The money would flow like a broken ATM
whether or not the plant ever lit a single light bulb.)
Chainsaw Kemp was more than willing to shill for
Georgia Power—and back subsidies, in the billions, for
Vogtle, which would be funded by Georgia’s ratepayers.
And to seal the deal, in December 2019, Gov. Kemp
appointed Kelly Loeffier to serve out the term of ailing
Sen. Johnny Isakson. She is now running to hold the
US Senate post for the Republicans in the November
2020 race. Loeffier was an odd appointment, sur-
264 How Trump Stole 2020
prising Republican Party leaders worried that this
political amateur would lose this hotly contested
seat. And shockeroo! Kemp even went ahead with
appointing Loeffler over the objections of Kemp’s first
love, Donald Trump.
But Loeffler had something experienced GOP poli¬
ticians didn’t have. She is on the board of directors of
Georgia Power.
CHAPTER 27
“Then he goes and buys
all the politicians”
Donald Trump isn’t a billionaire. He just plays one on TV.
So I was told by the expert on Trump’s magical
accounting, David Cay Johnston. The issue here is not
the President’s troubled relationship with the truth,
the problem is that he needs real billionaires to fund
his presidential runs.
But they just weren’t that into him. Mega billionaires
Charles and (now deceased) David Koch and Paul “The
Vulture” Singer were “Never Trumpers.”
But “Never” is not a long time when there are bil¬
lions in public treasure to divvy up.
BROTHER BILLY’S FILTH FACTORIES
David and Charles Koch had their beef with Trump, but
little brother William “Bill” Koch was the first billion-
265
266 How Trump Stole 2020
aire to put the big bucks into Trump’s campaign while
Trump was still soaping up the rubes with his line that
he was financing his campaign from his own pocket.
I filmed the first documentary on the Kochs in 1995,
about the richest guys you’ve never heard of. Now you
have. You need to know this: Throughout the 1980s
and 1990s, the Brothers Koch were at each other’s
throats. David and Charles had shafted Bill and David’s
twin, Fred, out of their share of Koch Industries. Bill,
cheated and angry, called a reporter (me) to rat out his
older siblings, providing some pretty detailed accounts
of various felony crimes they’d committed.
And he gave me an insight into how billionaires
operate. As I happened to have my tape recorder on. I’ll
share:
Bill Koch: My brother, unfortunately, views
himself as above the law, views himself-
GP: Which brother? You have three.
Bill Koch: Charles. Back to his libertarian philos¬
ophy where he believes that laws are immoral. He
views himself as being above it, and he’ll go out and
do whatever he wants, steal oil, pollute the envi¬
ronment, et cetera. Then when he gets caught, or
someone’s coming after him, then he goes and buys
How Trump Stole 2020 267
all the politicians he can to counter that influence,
to try to mitigate the cost of the crime, and they’ve
been very effective at it. VERY effective.
Bill then detailed two multimillion-dollar under-
the-table donations to presidential candidates and,
through a fake front, to the GOP. This was pre-Cit-
izens United —when corporate donations were a
felony crime. “Buys politicians to mitigate the cost of
the crime” refers to wholesale theft of oil. The Justice
Department had written up an indictment of Charles
and Koch Oil—but after Koch cash flowed, the indict¬
ment was quashed.
The point is, billionaires don’t donate to candidates.
They invest. And they expect a return.
And Billy, once he cut a deal with his brothers,
turned pro himself.
While Koch Industries has become the bete noire
among environmentalists, it is Brother Bill who is truly
the Goliath of Global Warming. His Oxbow Carbon is
the number-one dealer of “PetCoke, the gunk left over
from refining oil: compressed, hardened coal tar so
filthy, so toxic, it is illegal to burn it in much of the USA.
So, Bill Koch makes billions shipping if off to China.
What did Bill Koch want from Trump? What every
billionaire wants: another billion—^which Trump could
deliver by providing more filth for Bill to sell. Trump
268 How Trump Stole 2020
promised to jam through the authorization of the Key¬
stone XL Pipeline—to hell with environmental studies.
The Pipeline will bring down from Canada to Texas
the gunkiest, most carbon-heavy oil on the planet. It’s
so heavy that the only way this tar-sands oil can get
through the pipe is by removing some of the carbon
sludge (PetCoke)—providing a steady supply for Oxbow.
But Bill had to move quick to gain the inside track
with Trump: Brothers David and Charles had set up a
competitor, Koch Carbon, which had already extracted
PetCoke from the partly built pipeline, which Koch
Carbon had piled up on the banks of the Detroit River
in a mound bigger than an Egyptian pyramid.
CARRION INTEREST
Trump plays the “anti-billionaire billionaire”—going
after the Big Boys on behalf the Little Man. At least
until a billionaire scratches him behind the ear and
makes him roll over for a donation.
At his 2016 rallies. Trump talked tough. He said,
“The hedge guys are getting away with murder.”
Trump said he’d close the “carried interest” tax loop¬
hole worth $170 billion to hedge fund moguls.
And for two men, “The Vulture” and “The Foreclo¬
sure King,” the loophole is worth more than a billion
dollars to each.
How Trump Stole 2020 269
So, at first, Paul “The Vulture” Singer was Never
Trumper #i.
You don’t get the nickname “Vulture” for your charitable
endeavors. I’ve been following this bird for 13 years for BBC
Television and the Guardian, from his seizing the money
meant to stop a cholera epidemic in the Congo Republic, to
his helping the president of Peru escape murder charges, to
the suffocation of the economy of Argentina. His so-called
Vulture Fund has $40.2 billion at hand.
In 2016, Singer gathered big bucks for the laughable
Presidential ambitions of Marco Rubio. My disguise at the
Rubio fund-raiser in Manhattan had literally fallen off and
his knuckle-draggers, with the Dick Tracy radio watches,
grabbed me. I did get the chance to ask him, “Mr. Singer,
I just want to ask you how many billions is it worth to buy
the White House?” But I had to relay the question through
his bodyguard’s wristband radio (very Dick Tracy!).
But I knew the answer: the carried interest tax loophole.
270 How Trump Stole 2020
VOTE SUPPRESSION AIN’T CHEAP
In November 2012, the American public re-elected
Barack Obama with a mass outpouring of voters of
color that overwhelmed all the Jim Crow trickery. Seven
months later, the US Supreme Court made sure that
mistake would not be repeated: On June 25, 2013, the
court issued Shelby v. Holder, gutting the Voting Rights
Act of 1965. The Court, 5-4, eliminated the “pre-clear¬
ance” clause of the rights act. Until this ruling, Georgia
could not simply knock off half a million voters, nor
could Shelby County, Alabama, simply eliminate the
county board seats held by Black residents unless they
first received an OK from the US Justice Department,
“clearance” that there was no Jim Crow hanky-panky.
The “pre-clearance” requirement applied to 16 states
and parts of states, mostly in the “Deep South”—but
also including New York City, Alaska and Arizona. (The
pre-clearance requirement applied where less than half
of all minority voters were registered when the law was
passed. New York once blocked Puerto Rican citizens
from voting, Arizona and Alaska shafted American
Natives. In other words, you don’t have to eat deep-
fried Snickers Bars to have a history of blocking voters
of color.)
Kris Kobach’s Crosscheck and other forms of racially
poisonous trickery spread like kudzu after the deci-
How Trump Stole 2020 271
sion. Alabama’s requirement to have a drivers’ license
to vote—then closing DMVs in Black counties—took
effect within hours of the Court decision. You could say
the US Supreme Court in June 2013 elected Trump in
2016.
Liberal media was rightly upset with the decision.
But 1 had another question: Where did Shelby County
get the millions to take this case to the Supreme Court?
This is a big bucks operation. Did the Klan hold a
sheet sale? No, the push to gut the VRA was funded
by Project on Fair Representation. And in turn, Project
is a creature of Donors Trust, in turn funded by Koch
money.
Congress had the power to adjust the Act to the
Court’s liking. But a vicious, expensive lobbying cam¬
paign killed the VRA’s restoration. The bucks behind
the lobbying? The Manhattan Institute. The Institute’s
Chairman? Paul Singer, The Vulture.
It was the Koch/Vulture hit on the Voting Rights Act,
not a couple of Russian Facebook ads, that gave us an
unelected President.
CHAPTER 28
Silence of the
Democratic Lambs
In October 2016, our future Twittiot in Chief said,
It’s rigged_We are competing in a rigged elec¬
tion.
I couldn’t wait for Hillary Clinton’s response:
You’re right, Donald. The election is rigged. And
you know it, because your cronies are rigging it:
Kobach, Husted, Kemp. Your knuckle-draggers
are purging, blocking, disqualifying and stomping
on the votes of Black, Hispanic and young voters.
And I won’t tolerate it.
I know: she didn’t say that. In fact, she promised to
tolerate it; the purging, the stomping, the disqualifying.
273
274 How Trump Stole 2020
the reversal of Martin Luther King’s Dream. It was A-OK
with her, with ail Democrats for that matter. She prom¬
ised, no matter what happened to the votes of America’s
underclass, she solemnly swore to let Trump’s Jim Crow
operation do its worst, and she’d salute.
Why?
Why?
Why?
Wherever I speak, I get the same question: If, as
you say, Palast, the elections were stolen, if voters of
color—that is. Democrats—were savaged, then why
don’t the Democrats say something?
Why?
A 1 Gore, the victim of the 2000 purge, was despon¬
dent after his loss. He grew a beard, divorced his odious
wife, piled up a billion dollars—but never defended
the Black people in Florida whose votes were stolen.*
Why? Why? Why?
Let me level with you: I don’t know. But, I have some
theories. Stick with me on this.
□ □ □
* Gore knew about my discovery of the Florida faux felon purge. Before con¬
ceding, Gore was informed of my Guardian revelations on the Florida purge.
Sources told me that Gore, intrigued, said, “Who is the reporter?” When told.
Gore said, ”We hate that sonovabitch.” He’s correct. I’m an S.O.B., but I doubt
that led to his vow of complicit silence.
How Trump Stole 2020 275
At the last debate in 2016, even the Fox News moder¬
ator was horrified by Trump’s suggestion that he would
challenge a rigged vote. Chris Wallace said what all
Good Americans were told to believe, and he scolded
Trump:
No matter how hard-fought the campaign, the
loser concedes to the winner, and the country
comes together, for the good of the country.
If you question an election, you’re against the good
of the country, a scoundrel, a conspiracy nut. Even if
an election is indeed stolen before your eyes, it’s just
un-American, unacceptable to say it out loud. Like
the die-hard Communists on their way to their execu¬
tion ordered by Stalin; they praised the dictator and
the Party rather than question The Faith. Likewise,
American politicians and pundits would rather accept
electoral death than expose the rot under The Amer¬
ican Way.
Mark Braden, former chief counsel of the Repub¬
lican National Committee, is typical:
The most important thing in the system is that
the winners win and the losers lose. Almost as
important as that is that the rational people that
support the loser believe that the winner won.
276 How Trump Stole 2020
Note the word “believes.” To question The Belief, to
question The Faith in American Democracy, well, it’s as
crude and unacceptable as farting at a debutante bail.
WHITE OUT
And there’s another problem. In 2000, when I
uncovered how Bush won Florida and the White
House— stole the White House—when the Florida
Secretary of State removed tens of thousands of Black
voters as felons (and none were), the story ran at the
top of the BBC Television news in Britain and the front
page of the Guardian newspaper in London. But it was
not reported in a single US newspaper.
Oh, yes, there was an opinion column in the New
York Times mentioning the purge. But that “opinion”
was expressed by columnist Bob Herbert. Black colum¬
nist Bob Herbert.
But a white radio host, A 1 Franken, challenged my
discovery of the purge of Black voters. “If this were
true, how come I didn’t read it in the New York Times?”
Good question. But shouldn’t he have asked the Times?
That film we made of Christine Jordan, Martin
Luther King’s 92-year-old cousin, tossed out of the
Georgia voting station, purged from the rolls, was
picked up by a zillion TV and news outlets. So sad. So
(ironic: MiWs co usmfMut not one networl news broa^
How Trump Stole 2020 277
cast mentioned the story that went with the video: that
Ms. Jordan was on the list of 340,134 Georgians purged
by Brian Kemp. And that the list stole the election for
Georgia’s Purge’n General, Governor Kemp. Nor did my
investigation prompt the New York Times, the Wash¬
ington Post, or any other US media organization to
undertake their own investigation to either confirm or
refute my findings. The topic isn’t important enough?
No one attacked or challenged our solid, here-
is-the-evidence facts. They simply buried them,
unmentioned. It was better to have one story. King’s
cousin, we could all feel bad about. But, other than that
“one mistake,” the system worked.
The important thing is that “the loser believes that
the winner won.” But something went wrong in Georgia.
The “loser,” Stacey Abrams, doesn’t believe. She doesn’t
believe in Tinkerbell, nor in Santa Glaus, nor that Brian
Kemp had defeated her. She barnstormed America,
telling the story of Ghristine Jordan and—crucially—
the story of the 340,134 voters erased by Jim Grow’s love
child, Kemp. And she took our list into a federal court.
But then, Ms. Abrams is, well, not white.
After I exposed Kris Kobach’s Grosscheck scam in
2016, Gongressman Alcee Hastings told me he walked
across a bridge on the Potomac to personally place my
Rolling Stone article in the hands of the Attorney Gen¬
eral. “I didn’t want her to say she never got it in the mail.”
278 How Trump Stole 2020
Hastings is the dean of the Congressional Black
Caucus. I’m still waiting for a word from the Congres¬
sional White Caucus.
The New York Times, after the 2016 election,
repeated my story of Kobach and Crosscheck ... but,
curiously, never mentioned that the voters wrongly
removed were named Rodriguez, Jackson and Kim.
The story was deracinated, sanitized for public safety.
It’s telling that an outlet like MSNBC (or is it
MSDNC?) rails about the attack on voters before each
election, calling out the crazy ID laws, the long lines,
the refusal to register voters. But after any election, you
won’t find MSNBC nor any US outlet doing the math
and proclaiming, that election was stolen. They are, in
the end, good Americans. Good American drones.
Not long after Clinton announced her candidacy for
President, she told the Urban League in Florida, “They
stole the election. I can’t get that out of my head.” They
cheered. So did I.
But, apparently, her head had a leak. When November
2016 brought us “Florida 3.0,” with Black voters purged
and blocked, not a word left her lips about it. Not that
Hillary didn’t bitch and moan. She bitched and moaned
about white women enslaved to “pressure from fathers
and husbands and boyfriends and male employers
not to vote for ‘the girl.’” She bitched and moaned, Joe
McCarthy style, that Jill Stein was a Russian agent.
How Trump Stole 2020 279
That’s “Agent” Jill Stein, who put up $9 million to
count those 75,355 uncounted ballots in Detroit. Hil¬
lary’s votes. Indeed, Clinton nodded her collaboration
in Trump’s lawyers stopping the count of those Afri¬
can-American ballots.
Clinton knows that it’s legit to say the Russians did
it... because no American, even a Trump-American,
would ever steal a vote.
CLASS WAR BY OTHER MEANS
I make it sound like vote thievery is all racial. Not at all.
When Congressman Alcee Hastings walked across
that bridge, he put my expose of Kobach and Cross¬
check in the hands of an Attorney General, Loretta
Lynch, an African-American, or more accurately, a
Harvard American (BA/JD). She did nothing. Indeed,
Obama’s commission on voting endorsed the Cross¬
check purges.
As Marvin Gaye said, “What’s going on?’’
An African-American lawyer (a source I’d believe
more than my mother) told me that when he met in the
White House with his old colleague Obama, the Pres¬
ident said, “You know and I know that 70% of Black
folks’ problems are of their own making.”
Obama was barely more disguised in his dismissive¬
ness of voting barriers when he said, repeatedly, that
280 How Trump Stole 2020
voting, especially early voting, “is pretty easy and it
only takes a few minutes.”
Maybe it’s only a few minutes when you have the
Secret Service to clear the way; only a few minutes in
your upscale Hyde Park enclave where you vote with
Rahm Emanuel and other Goldman Sachs alumni.
You’d say voting “only takes a few minutes” if
you haven’t waited in a freezing parking lot with the
Freedom Faith Missionary Baptist members at the
polls in Dayton for five hours; “pretty easy” if you hav¬
en’t been tagged a “felon” and are told to prove your
innocence with documents that don’t exist.
With few exceptions, our betters, who vote with
the ease of getting a table at Cipriani, know their votes
count, and they simply don’t believe it could ever add
up to a stolen election.
The haughty view of one privileged voter, Barack H.
Obama, with his PhD mother and a father who earned
his masters at Harvard, suggests that more than race is
the driver of vote suppression.
U hider n eatla, ifis alout incom e , weal th, p ower .>|[t’s
fabout class.) Blacks are targeted because communities
of color are economically disarmed. All my studies for
these two decades show the same stats: the white poor
are screwed out of their vote as often as the Blackpoor,
(or nearly so.)
Vote suppression is simply class war by other means.
CHAPTER 29
Democracy Con Salsa
The cold numbers say Gore was defeated by racial vote
suppression trickery—as were John Kerry in 2004 and
Hillary Clinton in 2016. Gore grew a beard. Hillary
moaned about her loss, blaming her defeat on women
for giving in to “tremendous pressure from fathers and
husbands and boyfriends and male employers not to
vote for ‘the girl.’” All three conceded at light-speed,
nary a peep from them about the screwing of the
un-white voter.*
But one Presidential candidate screamed bloody
murder.
In 2006, the Guardian flew me to Mexico to investi-
* In all fairness to Kerry: In September 2017 , years after the election, the
ex-candidate was asked why he conceded despite evidence of the racial fix
in Ohio. To my surprise, he cited a “very good chapter on the election” in my
book, Armed Madhouse. He did not mention that the chapter in question is
called “Kerry Won.” The kid who asked why he conceded despite the evidence
in the book was shocked with a taser. Discussion over.
281
282 How Trump Stole 2020
gate the suspect loss, by a fraction of i%, of the “Bernie
Sanders of Mexico,” Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
On election night AMLO was way ahead when the
official count stopped—and resumed with a massive,
absurd reversal in the final minutes of the count. I and
other investigators found massive ballot-box stuffing
(video-taped!), ballot box dumping and intimidation of
voters at gunpoint.
I discovered that the games with Mexico’s electoral
rolls were secretly orchestrated by the Bush Admin¬
istration, using the same crew that had purged the
Florida voter rolls of fake felons for Bush in 2000.
When I met with him, AMLO made clear: he wouldn’t
do an A 1 Gore. Rather than grab his ankles, AMLO
grabbed a microphone, leading an occupation of the
central square of the capital, rallying every day for six
months. In the Distrito Federal I witnessed something
I’d hoped to see in the USA... a progressive candidate
call a fraudulent election a fraudulent election.
AMLO’s demand was simple: count all the votes,
“urna por urna”—loaUot box by ballot box.
Mexico’s Electoral Commission, a joke of a
watchdog, had authority to review each ballot box, but
chose only 1%. They found enough votes for AMLO in
just that 1% to make it clear that if all ballot boxes were
opened and counted, he’d win. So they kept the ballot
boxes sealed, uncounted.
How Trump Stole 2020 283
Despite warnings that the protest would destroy his
political career, he persevered.
jUma por urna!
Still, in the end, he lost.
So he ran again. And again. Then, in 2018, Mexi¬
cans fed up with los Trumpitos, the little Trumps, the
light-complexioned grasping grifters who have held
the Mexican presidency by theft and assassination for
decades, crushed the gangster government and elected
AMLO with too many votes to steal.
AMLO ran on a five-point platform, and Number
Uno was, Count Every Vote. Urna por urna.
As with Stacey Abrams’s campaign in Georgia,
talking about vote thievery did not discourage voters,
it got them fired up. (AMLO even overcame a $7.2 mil¬
lion smear campaign by Trump’s advisors, Cambridge
Analytica.)
AMLO insisted for 12 years. Juntos haremos historia.
Together we will make history —while north of the
border, instead of making history, defeated Democrats
chose to make millions.
But who am I to judge?
CHAPTER 30
Jim Crow International
Neither Brian Kemp nor Jon Husted nor even the Purge’n
General himself, Kris Kobach, will win any Award from
the International Society of Vote Suppressors. Because
what Kemp and Kobach are doing is neither new, nor
original, nor even a made-in-America invention.
In India, which preens about declaring itself the
world’s largest democracy, the Hindu fascist Prime
Minister Narendra Modi has acted to take away the
voting rights of Muslims using the Kobach trick, “prove
you’re a citizen!," but on a scale Kobach can only dream
of: threatening to remove a number of voters equal to
the entire US electorate.
In Italy, vote suppression is done with panache. 'The
ruling class simply refuses to accept the vote. For more
than a decade, Italy’s economy has had its bones crushed
by its membership in the euro currency zone. Ital¬
ians, rising up against the globalization cudgel that has
285
286 How Trump Stole 2020
brought them 29.6% youth unemployment, voted for
parties committed to getting out of the euro. The “Pres¬
ident,” His Excellency Sergio Mattarella, selected by a
lame-duck Parliament, not the people, simply nullified
the election, declaring he would not permit a government
that didn’t accept subjugation to the euro. Let’s hope that
the Republican country club known as the US Supreme
Court doesn’t hear about democracy Italian style.
□ □ □
In June 2016, Britain voted to leave the European
Union, “Brexit,” in the highest turn-out election in
the history of the realm. The working class victims
of globalization had risen up in revolt—but imperti¬
nently did so without first seeking the approval of the
Great and Good in their fern bars in Islington. As the
autoworkers of Detroit and Dayton objected to seeing
US elites send their jobs to Mexico and China, so the
British auto workers objected to their jobs’ disappear¬
ance into Germany’s Wirtschaftswunder Reich. Brexit
threatened to cut off their London betters from Nutella,
cheap French wine and cheap Polish plumbers.
Upper-middle-class voters Left, Right and Center
were ap^eaiOlPutTS^Jfexh yot^; The Liber¬
al-Democratic Party, an organization dedicated to
avocado toast and yoga, promised to simply ignore the
How Trump Stole 2020 287
voters’ will. The Labour Party, not to be confused with
a party of working people, promised to keep re-run¬
ning the referendum on Brexit until voters were too
exhausted to fight the bank industry’s preference to
remain in the EU.
Lucky for the Mother of Democracy, even those who
had favored the EU were so offended by the anti-dem¬
ocratic anti-Brexit campaign, that the Labour and
Lib-Dem parties were crushed.*
I must repeat: vote suppression is Qass War by other
(means.) If my Guardian colleagues, normally stalwart
progressives, were hysterical about the working class’
anti-globalization uprising, firing fusillades of conde¬
scension at voters in the Northern rust belt, it’s only
because no Guardian writer has ever been replaced by
a Bulgarian offering to write a column at a lower wage.
Before we applaud the democratic credentials of the
winner. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, I note that his
Tory Party has welcomed the arrival from the USA of
Jim Crow: the Tory Party’s plan to require ID to vote.
This will cost 3.5 million Britons their rights, calcu-
* No, do not send me nasty little notes about pro-Brexit racism or other such
foodie. This is a book about democracy, not the European Union, a corporate
contrivance I've dealt with more fully in the "Globalization and its Discon¬
tents” chapter of The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. As the late Tony Benn
said, if we can’t “get rid of you [the European Commission], we don't have a
democracy.”
288 How Trump Stole 2020
lates the UK’s Electoral Reform Society, especially
lower-income, darker-skinned, urban voters who lack
passports or driver’s licenses.
Obtaining ID in the UK is difficult because Britain
does not issue citizenship cards ... because there are
no citizens, only subjects of the Queen—and Her Maj¬
esty does not issue Subjugation Cards either.
OIL OR DEMOCRACY
On January 23, 2019, Donald Trump chose the next
President. Not the next President of the United States.
For that, we’d have to pretend to hold another election.
No, Trump chose the President of Venezuela,
though the Venezuelans had held an election. Notably,
Trump declared that the winner of the election was a
guy who didn’t bother to run. But, hey, Juan Guaido had
the five things that qualified him for the Presidency.
See if you can guess all five by looking at these
photos of Guaido’s party’s deputies in Venezuela’s
Congress.
How Trump Stole 2020 289
Juan Guaido’s qualifications are that he...
1. is white.
2. speaks English perfectly.
3 . was schooled in the US and worked for a right-
wing think tank in Washington.
4 . is collaborating with the Trump and US oil com¬
panies to return ownership of Venezuela’s oil to
Exxon.
5 . is white.
Compare this to Guaido’s opponent and his Con¬
gressional deputies. Nicolas Maduro is suspectbecause
he ...
290 How Trump Stole 2020
1 . refused to turn over Venezuelan national oil
resources to Exxon and BP.
2. speaks Spanish.
3 . was elected President by the voters.
4 . is not white.
The vast majority of the population is like Maduro
and his predecessor Hugo Chavez: Mestizo, mixed race.
Not white.
I was first assigned to Venezuela in 2002 by BBC
Television, when George W. Bush also decided to pick
their president by endorsing a coup d’etat against the
elected one, Hugo Chavez.
While Chavez was held prisoner by the coup plotters,
the US Ambassador ran down to the Presidential Palace
in Caracas, not to denounce the coup, but to attend the
“inauguration” of Pedro Carmona, an oil company exec¬
utive who represented Exxon, as President.
Carmona’s “Presidency” was voted on in a grand
ceremony and inaugural ball with Venezuela’s bankers
and the head of the Chamber of Commerce sol¬
emnly “voting” in Carmona of Exxon. Carmona told
me (we met in his fancy condo while he was under
house arrest) that his electors called themselves “civil
How Trump Stole 2020 291
society”—that is, no brown “monkeys,” as they called
Chavistas—and held a swearing-in worthy of a Jean
Genet play.
The farce fell on its face quickly. Over a million dark-
skinned citizens poured down the hill from the new
high-rises built by Chavez and surrounded the Presi¬
dential Palace. “President” Carmona took off his purple
sash and bolted through the secret underground exit
and offered himself up for arrest.
Once back at his Presidential desk, Chavez told
me he was hated by the white owners of the nation
because he was “Negro e Indio,” Black and Indian.
And, boy, was he hated by the elite. I asked a white
Caracas news reporter—interrupting her sensual poses
(she was in the midst of a publicity shoot)—why the
Venezuelan public was so overwhelmingly in favor of
Chavez. She pointed to the hills, once covered with a
million cardboard shacks, replaced by government built
high-rise apartments. She spat out, in disgust: “Chavez
gives them bricks! He gives them bread!” Bricks to build
houses, food to eat. Shame on him! You just don’t do that
in Venezuela, not for a bunch of poor Negros e Indios.
□ □ □
And while we’re south of the border wall, let’s not
forget that, while Trump’s plan to whiten Venezuela’s
292 How Trump Stole 2020
government has, as of this writing, failed so far, he suc¬
cessfully backed the overthrow of Evo Morales, elected
President of Bolivia. The current “caretaker” President
installed in a coup has brought order to the nation by
shooting indigenous protesters from helicopters, 20
dead as of this writing.
Then Trump supported the coup d’etat against Hon¬
duras’ President Manuel Zalaya and his replacement
with a lighter-pigmented president. (My mistake! It was
Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
who backed the coup in 2009.)
WHO DESERVES DEMOCRACY?
What’s the point? Why did we leave Georgia and Ohio
for Venezuela, Honduras and Bolivia?
Democracy does not mean accepting the election
of people we like; it’s accepting those we don’t like,
accepting the will of the people. (And yes, I have no
problem with the election of Donald Trump as Presi¬
dent, as long as he’s voted in by the public, not by Mr.
Kobach’s black ops trick bag.)
I have met Maduro several times and I’m not a fan.
He’s no Hugo Chavez. But it’s not my choice, it’s the
choice of Venezuelans. And their vote counts more
than mine or Exxon’s or Trump’s.
Why do I have to write something this obvious?
How Trump Stole 2020 293
Because the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi,
endorsed Trump’s selection of the unelected Guaido
as Venezuela’s president, bowing to Pelosi’s belief in
Trump’s superior understanding of foreign policy.
Madame Speaker: Our Founding Fathers did not
grant the United States our Liberty nor Liberty’s insep¬
arable twin. Democracy. Rather, in their slave-owning,
rape-approving, Indian-murdering conflicted hearts,
they believed in the Rights of Man, all men, and that
these rights are granted by The Creator. These rights,
Jefferson wrote in our Declaration of Independence, are
“inalienable”—they can’t be voided because a nation
is sitting on our oil.
The Creator created the USA; and She created Vene¬
zuela as well, Bolivia and all those nations Trump calls
“shitholes.” A world of The Creator’s creations, all born
with the right to vote.
THE PRICE
We cannot deny the right to the ballot box in other
nations, even with the endorsement of “civil society,”
and not expect the contagion of plutocracy to stay off
America’s shore.
I’m not endorsing, as Bush did in Iraq, that we drop
democracy from a B-52. But denying democracy anywhere
has its consequences. Three examples of a hundred:
294 How Trump Stole 2020
(□) When you see Trump locking up kids in cages
on the border, I must uncomfortably remind you
that this is the denouement of Obama and Clinton
endorsing a coup d’etat in 2009 against the elected
leftist President of Honduras. The coup led to
political-economic implosion, the takeover by
gangsters—and hundreds of thousands fleeing for
their lives to the US border for asylum.
(□) The CIA overthrew Iran’s elected government
in 1954. According to cables now public in the
National Archives, the CIA’s plot centered on
empowering Iran’s mullahs who had previ¬
ously kept at arm’s length from government,
to declare a fatwa against the elected govern¬
ment (which had, as in Venezuela, nationalized
Western-claimed oil reserves). Today’s nuclear
stand-off with Iran began with vote suppres¬
sion—suppressing the vote of Iranians.
® That same year, 1954, the US blocked the election of
Ho Chi Minh as President of Viet Nam. (For younger
readers who don’t understand the consequences of
that act of vote suppression, google “Viet Nam.’’)
Lesson? You can screw voters around the world, but
expect the disenfranchised to screw back.
CHAPTER 31
No-BS Ways to Stop the Steal
Near the end of just about every book on voting these
days, the authors give you their Big Plan to save voting
in America.
You know the list: Voting should be a national hol¬
iday. Block-chain internet voting. Lottery prizes for
voters.
Pie in the sky. Forget it.
I could say: Stop screwing voters of color out of their
votes. Or: Don’t put your right to vote in the hands of
jackals like Kobach, Husted and Alito.
Or, I could give you some highfalutin stuff like:
Recommit America to its founding principles.
Sure.
Let’s accept this: a candidate who fails to ask a bil¬
lionaire, “Where do I kiss it?’’ is going to require more
than 51% of the vote to be elected.
In Billionaires & Ballot Bandits, my detailed analysis
295
296 How Trump Stole 2020
put the 2008 election steal at 5-9 million votes—via
purge, disqualifications, and the mass rejection of pro¬
visional, absentee and paper ballots.
Yet, Obama won.
In other words: they can’t steal ail of the votes all of
the time.
Whatever the steal in 2008, whether 5.9 million or
more, Obama simply overwhelmed it. And so did pro¬
gressives in 2018 in Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada, and
beyond.
This book is not an excuse to simply walk away in
tears. If someone is trying to steal your car, would
you say, “Oh, here’s the key”? You scream, holler, bite,
scratch.
So, I’ve put together a no-BS list of practical stuff we
can do to protect our vote... and overwhelm the steal.
End the purges. Let my people vote! No use-it-or-
lose-it games. No Crosscheck, no stinky PEW “Movers
list.” Enough with the lynchings by laptop.
There is no reason to purge voters. Period. Whether
it’s whack-o claims of mass fraud by our President or
the PEW Trust’s soft-core Jim Crow plan to make lists
more “accurate” by selling inaccurate hit lists. I’ve yet
to hear a reason to remove citizens from the rolls. So
there’s a few extra names in the file. B.F.D.
How Trump Stole 2020 297
Affidavit, not provisional, ballots. New York used to
have “affidavit” ballots. If your name was missing from
the rolls, you signed under penalty of prison that you
are entitled to vote—and it counted unless someone
swears to direct knowledge you lied. Why in the world
did America disqualify over a million provisional votes
in 2016—^yet arrested not one of these provisional
voters for fraud?
No more push-and-pray machines. Junk the paper¬
less, Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) machines
whose counts can’t be verified. Los Angeles has
launched a system in which an iPad prints out your
ballot, and can warn of an over-vote or under-vote.
No registration, or, second best, make Same Day
Registration universal. Also, every state should allow
registration online. Almost all do now. And every state
should follow Oregon and register every voter auto¬
matically unless they opt out: high school and college
graduates, military and other service recruits and, of
course, those applying for a driver’s license.
No ID requirement. From Dr. Minnite’s investiga¬
tion, we know that you’re 540% more likely to get
killed by a lightning strike than impersonate another
voter. So, why have a law that costs literally hundreds
298 How Trump Stole 2020
of thousands of votes to prevent the average of one
impersonation fraudster every two years?
Make early voting a right. Three weeks for Souls to
the Polls, including evening hours. An early vote is a
vote, not an “absentee vote”—on real machines with
real ballots.
No gerrymandering of polling stations. Hours-long
lines are the result of cutting back on locations in com¬
munities of color, and reducing the number of machines
and workers. After Barack Obama in his 2013 State of
the Union complained that 102-year-old Desiline Victor
waited six hours to vote in Florida, the Pew Trust dis¬
sented. Pew reported that Florida lines were shorter on
average than in other states, only 23 minutes.
But the problem isn’t the average wait, it’s the Black
wait. As I filmed in Ohio, the “average” wait was two
and a half hours—five hours for African-American
early voters, zero minutes for white suburban Election
Day voters.
The Pew op-ed had an invidious effect: written in
defense of the impending defenestration of the Voting
Rights Act by the Supreme Court, relieving the Old
Confederacy of the legal requirement to have the feds
review any voting access changes that cause long lines,
like closing polling stations.
How Trump Stole 2020 299
The Supreme Court 5-4 ruled that official Jim Crow
has been “eradicated.” So how to explain the huge drop
in Hispanic and minority turn-out in the South in 2012?
Easy: obesity. According to a column by Prof.
Heather Gerken, who created the index for Pew Trust
praising Florida’s short lines,
States in the Deep South with high obesity prob¬
lems seem to be having a problem getting people
to the polling place.
Got that? Deep South Black and Latinx voters are too
fat to vote!
Maybe the wealthy Pew Trust can offer gym mem¬
berships to voters of color in Alabama.
In the alternative, designing polling locations to
create long lines for voters of color should be con¬
sidered a violation of the Voting Rights Act. But that
requires Congress to...
Restore and expand the Voting Rights Act. Spe¬
cifically, extend the requirement to pre-dear
changes in voting and registration systems in
every state, not just in the Old South.
Enforce Section 2 of the 14th Amendment. Everyone
knows Section 1, the “Equal Protection Clause” of the
300 How Trump Stole 2020
Constitution. N oTlnown. ang ^fie ver oiu^ e ^ r ceOg
the reduction of a state’s electoral votes and loss of
members of Congress for wrongful removal of legal
voters. It was one of the demands of Martin Luther
King for the 1963 March on Washington.
Ban required proof of citizenship to vote. It was
banned by a lower court, but Kobach’s wish will be
this Supreme Court’s command. Don’t kid yourself: it’s
coming. Fight it now.
Let voter intent rule. Only America has millions
of “residual” and “spoiled” ballots—uncounted. All
ballots must be eyeball countable and re-countable.
How Trump Stole 2020 301
And most important, the voter’s intent must rule. No
gotcha! games with bubbles and chads. The voter’s
intent must rule. In 2000, in Gadsden County, Flori¬
da’s “Blackest” county, voters marked the bubble next
to A 1 Gore’s name and also wrote in his name. The
ballot said, “Write in candidate’s name” (as opposed
to “Write-in candidate’s name). The 700 votes for Gore
were disqualified... and Bush became president by 537
votes. Basta!
Mail-in voting. The “Emergency Alert” section details
my proposals. Recap: No more crazy requirements for
witnesses or notaries. Provide pre-printed and postage
paid envelopes to end gotcha! errors on mail-ins.
Count the votes in public. Voter intent rules.
If the Covid-19 pandemic continues, all voters
should get a mail-in ballot without having to request
one, as in Colorado. Voters can choose to ignore it if
they insist on in-person voting. Repeat for Covid-20
and Covid-29.
End open primaries. The California Democratic Party
Comintern has figured out how to use the “open” pri¬
mary to screw a million independent voters out of
their ballot. (See chapter “California Reamin.’”) But, to
be fair, if you want to pick a party’s candidate, join the
damn party.
302 How Trump Stole 2020
Imprison fraudulent voters—and vote thieves.
Double voters, ghost voters, voting for the dead, it
just doesn’t happen. Almost. For those rare nutcases
that vote when they ought not to, arrest them. If, Mr.
Kobach, you really do have lists of fraudulent voters,
cuff m and book’m—don’t take away the registrations
of millions. Vote fraud is a crime. If someone robs a
bank, the bank does not close thousands of innocent
bank customers’ accounts, they have the bank robber
arrested.
I’ve no sympathy for the rare illegal voter. Lock’m up
and throw away the key. Then put Kobach and Kemp in
the next cell. As Tom Paine said, someone who takes
away your right to vote is worse than a horse thief. You
can always get another horse. But you can’t get another
democracy.
Hack-free elections. I’m not talking about hacking
electronic voting machines. I’m talking about elimi¬
nating political hacks—the Kobachs, Padillas, Kemps
and Katherine Harrises—from running elections.
Most voters don’t know who their Secretary of State
is, even though they voted for them. You don’t notice
these weasels until they run up your pants leg and bite
your jewels.
It’s time to ban elected partisans from the office of
Secretary of State and from elections boards. Only
How Trump Stole 2020 303
bipartisan boards of experts should direct our democ¬
racy. Is that such a crazy suggestion?
Respect the voters’ choice, and that includes the
voters of Honduras and Venezuela. You can’t applaud
overturning elections abroad, Ms. Pelosi, then com¬
plain when it happens here.
And keep Mike Pence away from your children and
pets. That’s just common sense.
Finally...
CHAPTER 32
Deport My Wife, Please!
Another way to defeat the election rustlers ... become
a freaking citizen.
There are 9.03 million legal permanent residents in
the USA, green card holders eligible to become citizens
and, therefore, eligible to vote.
Take a look at this chart with the number of citizen-
ship-eligible green card holders in swing states:
Citizenship-eligible
Green Card Holders
Official Election Margins
Georgia
140,000
55,000 Kemp over Abrams
Texas
930,000
215,000 Cruz over Beto O'Rourke
Florida
830,000
113,000 Trump over Clinton
Pennsylvania
140,000
49,000 Trump over Clinton
Michigan
130,000
11,000 Trump over Clinton
305
306 How Trump Stole 2020
If they had become citizens and voted, Stacey
Abrams would be Governor of Georgia, Beto O’Rourke
would have crushed Ted Gruz in the Texas race, and
Hillary Glinton would have won the Electoral Gollege
on roller skates.
So, Mr. and Ms. Alien, what do you say? Or are you
not bothered by kids in cages?
In fact, I have a modest proposition that my fellow
progressives will just hate: ban green card renewals.
Instead of green card renewals, there should be
automatic citizenship.
Under current law, immigrants are allowed ten
years on a green card—and then allowed to renew
for another ten years and another. Basta! If you don’t
wMlTo hec dmh^acifizeiT^ferMwhg Ke fej^teh^e^
get the hell out. You send your kids to US schools, go
to America’s national parks, and use America’s hospi¬
tals. But the schools are crap, the park is closed over a
budget dispute and you have to sell your Ghevy to pay
the hospital bill. You can change that.
And you’ve been paying taxes to Uncle Sam all these
years. You’re even liable to the US military draft. The
only thing you can’t do, inmigrante, is vote.
So it’s time you became a citizen and make the same
lousy choice we make every four years.
Or leave.
This is not an easy thing for me to say, because my
How Trump Stole 2020 307
wife is intent on renewing her green card. After two
decades here, the alien of the house refuses to become
an American.
It’s rough, but if my no-green-card renewal becomes
law. I’d have to have her deported.
See the sacrifices I make for my country?
□ □ □
And let’s not forget the old-fashioned way of making
progressive citizens. Throw away the lUD.
When I was at the Trump rally in Georgia, some
Q-Anon whack-o brought his EIGHT children. That
was a warning: demographics is destiny.
Hey, it’s still early. The Evangelicals are already at
it, making Republicans. So tonight, skip The Tonight
Show.
S5467
55468
21623
G«orgia
MOHAMED
AWEYS
MOHAMED
55469
Ohio
MOHAMED
RASHID
MOHAMED
55470
55471
21624
Georgia
MOHAMED
AWEYS
MOHAMED
55472
Ohio
MOHAMED
ALI
MOHAMED
55473
55474
21B25
Georgia
MOHAMED
SAID
MOHAMED
55475
Ohio
MOHAMED
OSMAN
MOHAMED
55476
55477
21626
Georgia
MOHAMED
AQDI
MOHAMED
55478
Ohio
MOHAMED
D
MOHAMED
55479
55480
21627,
, Georgia
MOHAMUD
ABDULAHI
MOHAMED
55481
Ohio
MOHAMUD
HAN5HI
MOHAMED
55482
1 1
55483
21626
Georgia
MOHAMUD
MUKHTAR
MOHAMED
55484
Ohio
MOHAMUD
MUKKHTAR
MOHAMED
55485
55486
21629
Georgia
MOHAMUD
ABDULLE
MOHAMUD
55487
Ohio
MOHAMUD
A
MOHAMUD
55488
55489
2163D
Georgia
JENNiFER
L
MOHLER
CHAPTER 33
An Almost-Happy Ending
You’ve read so much grim stuff here about American
voting, you’re ready to throw the book against the wall.
So, let me report some good news.
The Crosscheck investigation, in year seven, is far
from over. In the chart from the Crosscheck list, a
bunch of voters named Mohamed Mohamed in Ohio
were matched with Mohamed Mohameds in Georgia.
In other words, Brian Kemp handed Kris Kobach Geor¬
gia’s voter rolls; Kobach then passed Kemp’s list to Ohio
GOP Purge’n General Jon Husted.
When Kemp refused to give me the Grosscheck lists,
I took an unprecedented step: I sued Kemp in Fed¬
eral Gourt to open the files. Kemp said, “We don’t use
Grosscheck.” But then I produced the Georgia Gross-
check list I’d gotten out the side door.
And there was something else. Kemp claimed he
didn’t use the list, but his assistant swore he did—
309
310 How Trump Stole 2020
and our experts found that Kemp had purged 106,000
voters who were on the Crosscheck list. Coincidence?
Judge Eleanor Ross was not amused. On February 4,
2020, in a federal courthouse in Atlanta, she slammed
down her gavel on Kemp, now Governor, and his GOP
successor. In an extraordinary and unexpected move,
the judge acted sua sponte, that is, without my lawyers
even asking, and declared me the winner in Palast v.
Kemp as Summary Judgment. I wouldn’t even have to
go to court. Was I surprised? You could have knocked
me over with a feather.
What’s really cool is that I will now have access to
Kemp’s tawdry little secret dealings with Kris Kobach.
Even more important, I had brought my case under an
unusual reading of the National Voter Registration Act.
Now, I or any other journalist with the cojones and law¬
yers to do it can sue under the NVRA anywhere in the
nation to open the official purge files of any state.
And I have.
□ □ □
Kobach had his own problems. Fresh from shoplifting
the White House for Trump in 2016, Kobach thought
he’d pocket the Kansas Statehouse. With hubris
aplenty, Kobach in 2018 declared his run against the
sitting governor, a fellow Republican no less.
How Trump Stole 2020 311
Kobach couldn’t lose. He had President Trump’s
thumbs tweeting, “He will be a GREAT Governor and
has my full & total Endorsement! Strong on Grime,
Border & Military.”
More important, as Kansas Secretary of State,
Kobach would count the votes—and not count votes
he didn’t want to count. On Primary Day, he blocked
the counting of 898 provisional ballots in Johnson
Gounty, his opponent’s base. That allowed Kobach to
declare himself the winner by just 343 votes.
Even Republicans were disgusted. It’s one thing
to block Black voters and students, another to shaft
members of your own club. In the general election that
November, thousands of rock-ribbed Republican Kan¬
sans cast a protest vote for a third party candidate and
threw the Governor’s race to the Democrat.
Kobach was finished.
And what would become of Kobach’s precious purge
machine, Kansas Interstate Grosscheck?
Gone!
Kansans weren’t crazy to find out that Kobach had
been prancing around the nation erasing other states’
voter files using Kansas taxpayer dollars. Kansans had
already picked up the tab for his Federal Gourt con¬
tempt citations. His successor, as Secretary of State,
though a Republican, wanted nothing to do with a
purge program that was now drawing lawsuits. With
312 How Trump Stole 2020
Kansas dropping out, Kansas Interstate Crosscheck
was left homeless, with no one to compile the hit list
of Mohameds.
But Crosscheck was already checking out. Rev. Jesse
Jackson was showing our film. The Best Democracy
Money Can Buy, nationwide as he campaigned for vote
justice. Jackson’s home state, Illinois, then Massachu¬
setts and Kentucky, dropped Crosscheck. By the time
Kansas brought the game to a halt, 15 of 30 states had
already fled the purge program.
So Dr. King was right: the arc of history bends toward
justice.
But it can snap back. Millions of voters were sent
those poisoned “address confirmation” postcards in
2013 and 2015 because they were on the Crosscheck
double voter list. If they failed to respond and did not
vote in 2018, they will find themselves kicked off the
voter rolls before the 2020 election.
In other words, even a dead rattlesnake can bite. Or
run for office.
Kobach is back on the campaign trail. By the time
you read this, he may be
the Honorable US Senator
Kobach.
CONCLUSION
Shine!
Hank Sanders called. “I went to vote, and my name
was not on the voting list” where he’d been voting for
50 years. Nothing new: a Black man with a common
name.
But this was State Senator Sanders, who represents
Selma, Alabama. As a young man, Sanders had joined
Martin Luther King on the 1965 march over the Wil¬
liam Pettus Bridge. Four marchers were murdered en
route. But, by the time the survivors entered Mont¬
gomery, the state capital, the President of the United
States had introduced the Voting Rights Act.
What about Hank’s registration? It didn’t take long
for our investigator Zach D. to find out that Alabama
had joined Crosscheck—secretly.
I met Lynda Lowery, who told me her mom and dad
took her, in 1965, to the Brown Chapel AME Church to
see a minister she’d never heard of.
313
314 How Trump Stole 2020
They introduced Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Every¬
body got quiet, and he was telling our parents how
it was time for them to get the right to vote.
King announced he was going to the bridge and
asked, “Who will walk with me?”
Maybe King didn’t get it. He had missed Bloody
Sunday and the beatings; King was not in town when a
pro-rights priest was murdered.
“Who will walk with me?”
At first, no one stood up. But then, Lynda and the
other children rose. The parents joined.
When we got to the top of the bridge, then you
could see, really see, what was on the other side.
There were white people sitting on their cars
with their Confederate flags and their banners,
“Die, nigger,” and, “Go home, coon.”
This gas came, and with this gas, you couldn’t
breathe. You couldn’t see. 1 ran into this big thing
of tear gas, and he was running behind me with
the billy club. When 1 woke up, they had me on a
stretcher, putting me in the back of a hearse.
She was assumed dead.
Then she did something crazy.
How Trump Stole 2020 315
I just jumped up, and before anybody could catch
me, I was heading back across that bridge.
□ □ □
Because of all the lame jokes in my books. I’m often
asked, “How do you keep your sense of humor after
learning about these horrors?”
I don’t. I don’t know why America has broken my
heart. I go on, not always certain why.
Who appointed me Paul Revere? The vote thieves
are coming! The vote thieves are coming! But then, who
appointed Paul Revere?
I was raised in the poorest barrio in Los Angeles,
Pacoima-Sun Valley, where, today, next to the railroad
tracks alongside the shuttered GM plant, busted-out
trailers are “homes” for those left behind. I told you,
this is a book about power, not voting. Taking our vote
is how they disarm us.
316 How Trump Stole 2020
The Theft of 2016 wasn’t your fault. You didn’t
know. But, now, you do.
What can we do?
Like Paul Revere, everyone has a horse, a voice.
Maybe you’ll drive some Souls to the Polls, check the
registrations of ten people who mean something to
you; or just insist on the quiet truth when the Twittiot
in Chief bellows a fog of mendacity.
I was going through Christine Jordan’s family album
with her the evening after she was tossed out of the
polling station.
She talked with humor, but then said, sternly,
emphatically, “I will vole.”
I asked if she’d be willing to put herself forward as a
plaintiff in a lawsuit.
She pointed to her walker frame.
“Yes. If someone will help me up the courthouse
steps.”
Will you?
□ □ □
For me. I’m just a gumshoe, past retirement, with not
much more than a flashlight to illuminate the crime
scene, light up the evidence. All I have is this little light
of mine.
And I’m gonna let it shine!
"Who win walk with me?”
—M. L. King Jr., Selma 1965
318 How Trump Stole 2020
Yolanda Renee King plays piano for her father,
Martin Luther King III, and the author.
□ □ □
Do this now:
Sign up for updated reports at www.GregPalast.com.
And snap a photo of this guide i=>
and pass it around!
PROTECT!
YOUR
VOTE I
Use Greg & Ted’s New, Improved
BALLOT CONDOM
REMEMBER: They can’t steal all the hallots all the time.
Protect the health of your democracy during this epidemic of stupidity,
meanness and misinformation. Follow these simple instructions:
Don’t Just Pick and Lick!
If you decide to Go Postal and mail-in your ballot, make sure you follow your
state’s rules, no matter how berserk. That means getting a witness signature
(Minnesota), notarization (Alabama); and sign the ballot and envelop twice
if it says so; use the official envelope only; put on TWO stamps (Ohio). And
include a copy of that special ID (Wisconsin).
Registration Investigation!
Think you’re registered? This is America, Jack, not some democracy.
Better check your registration again. Make sure you have not been purged,
Orosschecked, made “inactive,” or otherwise scammed out of your vote. You
don’t have to re-register if you’ve moved within your county—but you’re a fool
if you don’t. Why? You can’t mail in your ballot, Flomer, if you don’t get it in the
mail in the first placel D’ohl
Don’t Get Spoiled Rotten!
Don’t mark ballots with red pens, pencils, crayons, lipstick. Don’t use an X, /,
or ©, unless It says so. Fill In the bubble. Bob. If on a machine, check over
your choices before you pull that final lever. If a punch-card, turn It over and
scrape off the chads. Dad.
The Early Bird Throws Out the Worms!
Vote early. In-person when no one’s around, weekdays if possible. Then, If they
jacked with your registration, you may have time to fight. But beware “Souls-to-the-
Polls” Sunday: In states like Ohio, the lines will be hours long as the vote thieves
launch their new weapons to block voters of color. If you area vofer of color or
under 35, don’t forget to take along photo ID and an experienced attorney.
Look Out for Tranquilizer Ballots!
The nice lady behind the counter will tell you your “provisional” ballot will
count. Bullshit. Demand a real ballot from an election judge. If you mustWW out
that bogus bouncing ballot, make sure you fill In every line on the envelope
with registration address, registration signature, and If no license, write “no
license.” If you need to return with an ID, do it and don’t bellyache.
Act Out!
It’s time to say basta/to mass purges, to voter ID rigmarole, to tossing out
provisional ballots and to the entire lynching-by-laptop operation. And that means
joining voting rights action groups such as RaInbow/PUSFI. Whether you’re a
butcher, baker or mass tort litigation maker, we need you to cross The Bridge with
us. I know you have a good excuse to do nothing, but I don’t want to hear it.
Stay Alert!
Right now, sign up for the latest updates on the vote rustlers at...
www.GregPalast.com
APPENDIX
cohereOne
San Rafael, California
John Lenser, CEO
Address Verification Process
Palast/Mirer
The objectives of the assignment were to analyze the
cancelled voter data provided by the State of Georgia
and to determine an estimate of the number of voters,
if any, on the cancelled voter rolls provided who con¬
tinue to reside at their original address.
John Lenser, CEO of CohereOne, Inc., lead in
the analysis. CohereOne is a leading agency in list
hygiene, circulation planning, and modelling for cat-
alog/e-commerce companies. CohereOne routinely
processes client lists to optimize address accuracy for
mailing using a combination of the National Change of
Address database provided by the United States Postal
321
322 How Trump Stole 2020
Service and proprietary advanced address hygiene
(PCOA) tools provided by several specialized vendors.
PROCEDURE
Electronic files were received, input to standard software
for analysis, and categorized by reason for cancellation;
the results are displayed in the charts below.
* 665,677 names were received for the year
2017 and identified as cancelled
- 534,584 were identified as "system cancels"
- Of these, 534,510 were tagged as removed
because of no activity in two voting cycles
* 83,319 names were received for the year
2016 and identified as cancelled
Palast/Mirer indicated that “System Cancels” mer¬
ited further analysis. CohereOne chose to look at
only the records that were not flagged as Deceased
or Felons, assuming that the State of Georgia records
were correct for these.
As a first step, it was necessary to convert the voter
records from a concatenated format into standard
name and address fields. Because of difficulty in refor¬
matting addresses, CohereOne was able to quickly
reformat only 458,556 records.
How Trump Stole 2020 323
CohereOne then subjected these records to
advanced address hygiene.
The address hygiene processing included the fol¬
lowing steps:
• Reading a file of 555,702 cancelled voter
registration records originating from the
State of Georgia from 2016 and 2017.
These records were pre-screened for
deceased, felonious, and other standard
conditions that disqualify voters:
• Correcting record address fields, parsing
them into street address, city, state, and
ZIP code, os the State of Georgia hod
not provided them in o usable standard
address format 458,556 records were
correctly re-formatted; those re-for¬
matted names were processed through
advanced address hygiene; and
• Processing 458,556 names and addresses
through postal hygiene routines including
address standardization, ZIP code cor¬
rection, NCOA (Notional Change of
Address) and PCOA (Proprietary Change
of Address) which provides dynamically
324 How Trump Stole 2020
updated information from dozens of
private databases. Out of these pro¬
cesses, the service delivered output that
included assessment of mail deliver-
ability. moves that occurred in the post
48 months with forwarding addresses
where applicable, and verification of a
named individual at an address. In com¬
mercial settings, this process has been
determined to have a 95% plus accu¬
racy rote in verifying that an individual
resides at a specific address or providing
a new address.
To summarize, the goal of these processes for com¬
mercial mailers is to determine the correct address for
an individual, so as to not waste mailing expense and
so as to not lose sales from customers on the move. In
commercial settings, this process has been determined
to have a 95 % plus accuracy rate.
RESULTS
Applying that process to this file, yielded
340,134 records where mailing technology indicates
that the individual is still at the original address (and is
neither deceased nor a felon).
How Trump Stole 2020 325
We note that of 458,556 names processed, an addi¬
tional 19,118 were determined to be deceased.
To further validate this process provided accurate
results, one could mail a statistically valid subset of the
file and request the post office apply a ‘do not forward’/
‘return to sender’ service. This is a standard USPS ser¬
vice, is a several week process and, depending on the
sample size, could be of moderate cost. Only those
who return a card or whose card is returned by the post
office should be considered to have moved their resi¬
dence.
SUMMARY
The processes used in determining that a substantial
portion of cancelled registrants still reside at their
original address are standard and deployed daily by
commercial mailers. Not only are they standard but
they are cost-effective typically costing less than $.05
per record processed. In our opinion, this process is far
superior, at a fraction of the cost, in determining that a
person still resides at an address than mailing them a
postcard that can be easily mistaken for “junk mail” or
requires them to return a reply card.
326 How Trump Stole 2020
SOURCE DATA
2016 Cancellations by Reason
Status Reason
System Vital Process Grand Totd
Deceased
19.684
37,363
57,047
Duplicae
9229
-
9,329
Eirof
ess
Q9
Felon
laim
10,702
Hearing
3SE
-
3S8
Mentatly Incompetent
U
-
tl
^^ved Out of County
SQ2
502
f^ved Out of State
9626
3,626
Not Verified
258
-
258
Voter ReQuesBd
847
-
847
Grand Total
45,956
37,363
83,319
2017 Gance nations by Reason
Status Reason
System
user AcilM
vkd erocess
Grand Told
Dectated
■
X224
40222
64.416
Duplicate
•
36.623
36.623
tiTor
2
261
2B3
F«on
14.021
14.021
31
574
0D5
Mentally inarnoe tent
21
21
Moved Out of county
21
784
606
MovedOutof State
r
1I.S1
U,631
NoActivity torJGety BecscnCyoes
SM.SX}
7
534.317
Not verified
5
514
522
voterRe quested
1
2,201
-
2,202
GrwdToul
SMSsa
50,571
4a 222
665,677
Index
[tk]
327
328 How Trump Stole 2020
How Trump Stole 2020 329
330 How Trump Stole 2020
How Trump Stole 2020 331
332 How Trump Stole 2020
How Trump Stole 2020 333
334 How Trump Stole 2020
Acknowledgments
[tk]
335
336
337
338
About the Author
[tk]
339
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